Author: Rob

Most organisations don’t even recognise what good engineering looks like. They treat software development as a commodity – a manufacturing production line – measured by how many features are shipped rather than whether the right outcomes are achieved. Few understand the value of investing in modern software engineering best practices and design – the things that make those outcomes sustainable.

I have never been the best engineer I’ve ever met. But I like to think I’ve been good at delivery solutions. I’m not sure that AI effectively weeds out mediocre engineers than it lowers the floor for sub optimal solutions and raises the bar for good ones. Suddenly I’m spending less time googling syntax for JOIN statements and more time engaging in a discussion of best practices for good data modeling.

Good data modeling is a core engineer task that has nothing to do with writing code.

_{Quote Citation: Rob, “Is AI about to expose just how mediocre most developers are? | Rob Bowley”, 2025-08-08, https://blog.robbowley.net/2025/08/08/is-ai-about-to-purge-mediocre-developers/}