What It Actually Takes to Stay Relevant as a Software Engineer in the Age of AI.
AI as a tool, or a complete replacement?
AI is a powerful tool that can either accelerate or slow down the development process depending on how it is used and who is using it. It now integrates in every aspect of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), and since 2022 we hear the same words almost daily; "Software Engineering is Dead" or "AI will take your job" ...
But if we pay attention to WHO is saying this, we will find either someone whose company/startup is trying to raise funds from investors, or purely business people who do not have a technical background, or someone only building thin-client/thin-server apps (meaning apps with not much complexity on either side).
On the other end of the spectrum, you will find well-respected tech people saying that it is a tool (a really beneficial one) and they don't recommend relying on it completely; moreover, you will hear them say the actual TASKS of a software engineer have changed and are changing, the focus now is more on higher level architecture, building more complex features, performance, understanding product/business requirements and context to deliver real value to the end users ...
"Good Engineer" Before and After AI
A good engineer before AI will still be a good engineer after it, just a more productive one. The inverse is also true: if someone struggled to think through problems, debugging, write clean code, or reason about systems before AI, handing them a powerful tool won't fix that. It will just show the gaps faster. But what actually makes a "Good Engineer"?
For me, it comes down to a few things: the courage to dig deeper into the internals of the frameworks and tools they use, strong fundamentals they've consistently sharpened over time, and genuine curiosity that doesn't stop at "it works." You can usually spot these engineers without looking at their resumes; others in the company speak highly of them, they get pulled into the hard problems, and their opinions carry weight in technical discussions.
But the ones who truly stood out to me were the SUPER good ones, and I'm not talking only about their technical depth I'm talking about their humility. They were down to earth, approachable, and genuinely open to learning from anyone, including juniors. You always wanted them on your team, not just because of what they knew, but because of how they made you feel when working alongside them.
What does it take to be a good engineer in AI era? [CRAFT]
There is a good article called Frontend isn't dead, but your focus needs to change that talks about these [whats] it takes to become a good engineer. And presented simply in the term CRAFT - Complexity, Responsibility, Agentic Experience, Full-stack, Product Taste. I highly recommend reading it and looking at it from the perspective of a software engineer not only Frontend.