The Multiplier Mindset

Preface: Why Engineers Must Become Multipliers in the AI Era

The skills that make you a good engineer now are quite different from those that made you a good engineer in the 2010s, when you could get a job as an engineer just by knowing HTML, CSS, JS, and one of the JS frameworks. Now, as tools for development have gotten better, the expected and desired skills for engineers have moved from knowledge of programming languages and frameworks, pure requirements, and clearly defined tasks to problem-solving abilities and people skills. It’s less about the tasks and more about how big an impact you can create.

The engineers who can create the biggest impact are those who have the multiplier mindset: a mindset where you focus on how you can make things better for your whole team, the organization, and, of course, the users.

Let’s define the difference between building software today and in the past.

The Way We Build Software Has Fundamentally Changed

The tools we use to build software now are much better and more accessible. Even people with non-technical backgrounds are doing vibe coding to build software. Vibe coding certainly has use cases, and I see it as a good option for quick prototypes and internal tools (especially those that are noncritical and mostly presentational).

But vibe coding presents issues with security, maintainability, and scalability, which most consumer-facing software prioritizes. And when you work in a team, it becomes really hard to maintain a project if ...