Cheap implementation changes who is technical.

2026-10-07 · update

I worked in sysadmin and network operations. I think I know what good software feels like. I didn't need to spend those years writing application code to learn that.
Software was always a team effort: spec with product, requirements in Jira, implementation in code, architecture in someone's head, and whether it works with the user.
Every perspective has a bias. Engineers can care too much about internals and non-functional requirements. Product can miss implementation constraints. Tests inherit whoever wrote them.
AI makes implementation cheap enough that those boundaries blur. A user can be much closer to building and testing the thing they actually need.
The interesting role may sit between a human-focused senior architect and an ex-engineer product person. Some CS, half a design course, liberal arts, lots of building.