Emilio Carrión
Build the road, don't run the marathon
My personal manifesto on the future of software engineering. Not an analysis. A direction.
I've spent weeks trying to write this post. I started it three times and deleted it each time because it sounded like something I'd already said.
Which makes sense. I've been writing for months about how AI is changing software engineering. About the opaque code already running in production. About the heuristics seniors can't explain. About why verification is the new core work. About why that verification needs infrastructure, not discipline. But all of that was loose pieces. Diagnoses. Concrete solutions to concrete problems.
What I hadn't written was the thing that connects all of it. The underlying question: where is this profession headed? Not tomorrow, not next week. In three, five, ten years.
This is as close as I have to an answer. It's not an analysis. It's a personal manifesto. My bet.
This is my personal manifesto on the future of software engineering. Read the full version at /manifesto.
Related articles
Discipline Doesn't Scale. Verification Needs Infrastructure.
Individual discipline as a quality system is a fragile design. Tests scaled because they became infrastructure. Verification needs to do the same.
Generating Is Easy. Verifying Is the Work.
Anthropic separated the agent that generates from the one that evaluates, and quality skyrocketed. That pattern describes the future of software engineering: generation is commodity. Verification is craft.
AI and Cognitive Debt: What I've Learned Using It Daily
AI multiplies your analytical capacity, but it can atrophy your thinking if you don't use it with intention. Three scientific studies and real-world experience from a Staff Engineer who uses it every day.
