You are now the whole team
A common claim is that AI makes software engineering easier, and that anyone can now code. The first half is true: writing code was slow and expensive, and an agent genuinely removes that cost. The second half is true only for software nobody depends on. This series argues the opposite of the usual conclusion. We were always the engineer and the bricklayer at once, because in our trade putting the walls up is itself an ultra-qualified job and there was never a cheaper pair of hands to give it to — so the engineering always competed with the building, and lost. Now that something else can lay the bricks, one person is left holding every role a team used to spread around: product owner, project manager, architect, platform engineer, QA and reviewer. Every claim here is measured against two real repositories, and the conversations are quoted on both sides.
3 of 3 parts published.
Parts
At long last, only an engineer
We were always the engineer and the bricklayer, because in software putting the walls up is itself an ultra-qualified job. Something else can lay the bricks now — which does not make you less of an engineer, it makes you only an engineer.
The terminal I could not build
The thing I wanted for years and could not afford to build, what it sounds like when a terminal is navigable by heading, and why I still did not start by asking an agent to write it.
The gap between what you said and what you meant
Extrapolation is the whole reason you use an agent, and the whole risk of using one, because they are the same mechanism. So the question is never how to stop it — it is where it should be wide and where it must be narrow.