> I watch engineers pick up design so the thing looks good and feels good, not just runs. The work pulls you into the parts you used to hand to someone else. We’re all stretching wider than we trained for. Whatever the work needs, we learn it.

Even back to the mid-90's I've always approached projects like this -- soup to nuts, all the way from idea to conception to creative ideation to implementation to digital life!

I also used to assume everybody did lol, until I worked long enough professionally to watch the landscape subdivide like a fractal into what we have now.

There's a LOT of bad shit to be said about AI coding, but I also have this feeling that something about it all is rekindling that ancient one-man-band approach that can actually work if you're able to play all the instruments. Really interested to see what comes of it once the breathless hype dies down a little bit.

Wow, you’re speaking my mind.

I’ve been thinking the same thing. AI makes it possible for us to be generalists again. One person, or a small team of generalists, can create and build things in a more human way, with everyone putting a piece of their soul into it.

It lets us be more involved, have more impact, and not just be one tiny cog in a huge machine, working on a small piece you can barely identify with in the bigger picture.