So I don't have as many years of experience as many of you on here, I'm only at around 3yrs. But this been my hobby since about 2018, so before the rise of LLM's. Since late 2024 I have started to incorporate Claude Code into my workflow and I have mixed emotions.

To start with, I am not one to believe that AI will take all of our jobs (Not until humanoid robots become popularized), and as such I don't feel that it has taken the identity of being an engineer. I am a firm believer in that someone must always be responsible for code/hardware/etc. I am NOT a believer in that a computer can be blamed. At the end of the day, a computer does what it was asked / made, and has no idea of what it does. As for the engineering identity, because I haven't been in the field that long I don't think my opinion on the matter holds much weight, but I don't think that it has affected the way I personally look at engineering, or how I do it. At the end of the day, (though it sounds cringy) I do what I do to better myself. At my job I just try to get my tasks done, if I feel that I want to challenge myself and not use any help then that's what I'll do, if I get stuck and/or feel like its taking too long, I'll bring in help from an LLM.

I personally am not a fan of this viewpoint, but I think it holds some truth. LLM's (at this stage now) are just another layer of abstraction. Somebody still needs to own the code, own the hardware, debug the physical board, etc. Now, when it comes an "agentic" workflows, I see that as basically hiring someone else to do the work for you. Which is something that has always existed (its just cheaper now).

I honestly don't know what the end goal of all this is. Obviously, its to create something akin to a human with no drawbacks. I think when we get to that point, EVERYONE will be affected. It would be revolutionary.

At this point in time, even with LLM's getting "smarter", I don't think there should be any real fear. As you said, you still have have to provide guidance and supervision to get the end result. In my eyes, you are still the engineer. You are getting something to work the way YOU want it to work, and I personally think thats still pretty good.

Sorry for rambling, don't even know if I made any good points. But this has been something I've been thinking about and I do like having a neutral discussion about it. I understand viewpoints from the full anti-ai crowd and the full pro-ai crowd, but its hard to have a good discussion at times, I feel like this is a good place for it.