So is this type of person rare in the wild? Fast food's dominance over home cooking suggests people naturally tend to outsource work and just consume the result — which would mean the type I'm describing is indeed rare. But I feel like engineering is a much more filtered space; someone who wants to be an engineer is fundamentally different from a guy who just wants a household chore fixed.
If this type is rare, what caused it?
I think the engineering mindset comes from a place of curiosity. I don't agree that there is anything fundamentally different about the person who chooses to be an engineer versus not, I think everyone just has a different mix of characteristics and preferences.
For me, the act of creation is the compelling part. Sometimes that's writing code, other times it's seeing the fully-formed thing come into being. For the latter, LLMs can certainly help me do more, or at least take care of some of the menial stuff like writing test cases while I do more interesting things like think about strategy/architecture.
Just make sure you're reviewing your LLM's code as if you were a colleague's!
So depending on the day I can very much enjoy the craft or just be glad something is done.
JohnFen•1h ago