Is It Still Engineering If AI Writes the Code?

It seems like everyone is using AI to generate code these days. Which begs the question: if an LLM is typing out the syntax, are we actually engineering anymore? ​Like any tool in this era or any era before it the answer depends entirely on how you use it. I’ve written before about AI being like a sword; in the hands of a skilled master, it’s an incredibly powerful weapon. But a sword doesn't win a battle on its own. Today, I want to talk about the skill of the engineer wielding it. The "Screenshot to App" Trap ​We have all seen the viral demos. Someone shows an AI an image of a UI, writes a basic prompt, and the AI spits out a functioning workflow. It looks like magic. ​But look under the hood of those generated apps. You almost always get a massive, single-file monolith with zero security, tightly coupled logic, and a fundamentally fragile flow. ​What happens when you want to extend that app? You ask the AI to move a feature or reuse a component. To accommodate, the AI writes more co