AI can help teams write more code. The best engineering organizations will still try to write less of it.
In the AI era, senior engineering judgment is measured by value created per unit of complexity left behind.
I like coding agents, but I don't want teams to confuse generation with engineering. Every new feature becomes something to test, secure, explain, migrate, monitor, and eventually remove.
The engineering work that impresses me right now isn't mostly about agents. It's Linear's local-first speed, Snowflake cost discipline, the careful tuning of the systems underneath — and the old lesson that code is operational liability unless it solves the right problem.
AI changes how fast we can create complexity. It does not remove the cost of carrying it.
A stronger engineering culture will use AI to reduce waste, not to industrialize it.