Re:Being an Engineer in 2026
by goosejuice on Monday November 09, 2026 @04:23PM
(#50432381)
[delayed]
Re:Being an Engineer in 2026
by randysalami on Monday November 09, 2026 @04:35PM
(#50432543)
Realistically you want fewer, higher-quality engineers who are educated in these tools and treat them with respect and caution. These tools are dangerous and you can’t play around. All it takes is one mistake and the blast radius is way, way larger. One mistake can do so much damage it undos all value of an entire year. Before downloading a malicious dependency was limited to deterministic behavior and could be scanned for. Now, you run a MCP server locally, it can prompt inject (in many different ways), and now your super powerful AI buddy is hacking you in ways a deterministic piece of malware could never. You could cripple entire companies through negligent use.
Re:Being an Engineer in 2026
by JimBlackwood on Monday November 09, 2026 @04:39PM
(#50432618)
At the same time, having customized software has become cheap. We’ll be writing a ton more small software, and people will have to maintain it.
I feel like that’s where the average ones will go.
This is the real fear. We had a flood of engineers who entered the profession in the past 10-15 years who were decidedly average. No real interest in software development beyond "it's a cushy desk job, or better yet WFH job, that pays really well." No interest in whatever product was being developed by their company. Just show up, their PM assigns them a ticket to make a widget with a button, they use their TypeScript bootcamp skills to code up a widget with a button, ticket moved to In Review, job's done.
Now an agent can do that, and you need fewer of these types of people. Like, a lot fewer. Every engineer on your team who isn't a 10x-cum-100x engineer feels like a massive lost opportunity.
The "10x" engineers I know have never been more excited about their jobs. I'm really unsure what's going to happen to the average ones.