I was chatting with my buddy at work yesterday in slack and I asked him a simple question: “What do you think I could do to improve?”
The conversation that followed we realized we were both thinking the exact same thing.
We looked at each other (digitally) and basically said:
“The engineer is dead.”
Not in the dramatic, sky-is-falling, pack-your-bags kind of way. More like… the role as we knew it? That thing where you sit in your corner, write code, push to prod, close the ticket, repeat?
Yeah. That’s done.
Here’s what’s replacing it.
At the startup I’m at right now, we’ve got teams of 2+ engineers doing work that used to take 10 people. And they’re doing it in a third of the time.
How?
Because they’re not “just” engineers anymore. They’re talking to customers. They’re reading product analytics. They’re defining what gets built and what gets cut. They’re owning the whole thing — from “what does the data say?” all the way to “ship it.”
The industry is calling this a “product engineer” And honestly, it’s kind of the coolest evolution of this career I’ve seen.
Think about it — the AI bots are writing the code now. Like, a LOT of the code. And that’s only going to accelerate.
So if you’re hanging your hat on “I write good code”… you’re hanging your hat on the one thing that’s getting commoditized the fastest.
But here’s the part nobody’s talking about:
The stuff that’s not getting commoditized? Talking to a customer and actually understanding what they mean (not what they said — what they mean). Setting a roadmap. Cutting scope without killing the product. Communicating up the chain. Making the call on what to build next.
That stuff is pure gold right now.
And the engineers who figure this out early? They’re going to be irreplaceable.
The ones who don’t?
They’re updating their LinkedIn.
Look — I get it. Some people want to stay where they are, collect the check, live their life. I respect that. Truly.
I just can’t relate.
I love growing. I love the idea that the skills I’m building today — interacting with customers, defining a product, learning how to deliver real value — those are the skills that let me start a business one day. Or build my own product. Or become the person that companies fight to keep.
That’s the long game.
And I’m playing it.
