> What are you building?

This x1000. The last 10 years in the software industry in particular seems full of meta-work. Building new frameworks, new tools, new virtualization layers, new distributed systems, new dev tooling, new org charts. All to build... what exactly? Are these tools necessary to build what we actually need? Or are they necessary to prop up an unsustainable industry by inventing new jobs?

Hard to shake the feeling that this looks like one big pyramid scheme. I strongly suspect that vast majority of the "innovation" in recent years has gone straight to supporting the funding model and institution of the software profession, rather than actual software engineering.

> I'm not even sure building software is an engineering discipline at this point. Maybe it never was.

It was, and is. But not universally.

If you formulate questions scientifically and use the answers to make decisions, that's engineering. I've seen it happen. It can happen with LLMs, under the proper guidance.

If you formulate questions based on vibes, ignore the answers, and do what the CEO says anyway, that's not engineering. Sadly, I've seen this happen far too often. And with this mindset comes the Claudiot mindset - information is ultimately useless so fake autogenerated content is just as valuable as real work.