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what makes an engineer valuable when AI writes the code
if you’re starting out as an engineer, the question worth asking is what exactly someone is going to pay you for.
lets say two engineers get the same request from a client, “ build user management for a compliance platform.”
the first one opens Claude Code, writes a clear prompt and has it working by evening. login, roles, an invite flow. it works.
the second one spends the morning asking questions.
who approves a new user at a bank? what happens to their records when they leave? does this run on the client’s servers or ours?
the second version ships two days later.
six months in, the first one is being rewritten. the bank needed approvals, and deleting a user broke the audit trail.
both used the same model. the difference was everything the second engineer knew before writing the prompt.
that difference has a name.. T-shaped engineering. so let me explain what it is, piece by piece, and why each piece makes you harder to replace.
development is not engineering
development is taking a task and building it. a ticket, a user-facing feature, a module. you get the requirement, you implement it, and it works.
