Anton Keks: Software Engineering 2.0, AI Edition | Ep. 10

With AI, great product engineering is relevant more than ever.

Anton Keks and I sit together again to explore the real question: what does it mean to be an engineer now, in today's AI world?

In this round 2 conversation, we talk about the shift from coding to thinking — from generating output to making decisions. Because AI doesn’t remove the need for engineering fundamentals; it amplifies the cost of not having them.

We cover what AI engineering actually looks like in practice: how to use these tools without losing control, how to avoid shallow understanding, and why system design, feedback loops, and clean abstractions matter more than ever.

We delved deep into discussing pair and pair-programming practices in the age of AI, and how engineers can collaborate with each other to avoid knowledge silos.

We also get into the operational side — CI/CD, security, engineering workflows, and building systems that scale and survive.

If you’re leading teams or writing production code in 2026, this is the podcast you might be interested to listen to.

00:00 Intro & What This “Round 2” Is About
00:10:55 Blind Execution vs Real Understanding in Engineering
00:21:50 Why Core Engineering Skills Never Go Away
00:32:45 Avoiding Knowledge Silos in Teams
00:43:40 Team Culture, Demos & Feedback Loops
00:54:35 Reducing Boilerplate & Writing Cleaner Code
01:05:30 Productivity Tradeoffs & Time Optimization
01:16:25 Using AI Effectively as an Engineer
01:27:20 CI/CD, Automation & Developer Workflows
01:38:15 Security, Vulnerabilities & Real Risks
01:49:10 Building Systems That Last for Years
02:00:05 Scaling Systems & Working with Subdomains

Thanks for listening. Feel free to subscribe on YouTube or on MapForEngineers.com substack. See you next time.