Three Years In: A Senior Engineer's Reflection on AI's Impact on the Software Development Role
By
ColinEberhardt
Pulled from the oven just right. Trustworthy, fact-dense, deeply satisfying.
Summary
A senior engineer reflects on the long-term sustainability of AI tools in software development, three years into deep organizational adoption. The author critiques both the overly optimistic "AI made me 30% more productive" narratives and the vendor-driven architectural perspectives, arguing they miss the human reality of what it's like to be a senior engineer in an AI-heavy environment. The piece questions whether the traditional senior engineer role still makes sense given the changes AI has brought to workflows, responsibilities, and team dynamics.
Key quotes
· 2 pulledA lot of what's been written on this topic falls into one of two camps: the 'AI made me 30% more productive' piece, usually written by someone six months into using the tools and often by a consultant who doesn't have a job to actually do, and the architectural piece about how AI changes the SDLC, which tends to be written from a vendor perspective and skips over the human reality.
I'm interested in something else: what it's actually like to be a senior engineer in an org that's gone deep on this, three years in, and whether the shape of the role still makes sense.
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