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 About00:10:55 Blind Execution vs Real Understanding in Engineering00:21:50 Why Core Engineering Skills Never Go Away00:32:45 Avoiding Knowledge Silos in Teams00:43:40 Team Culture, Demos & Feedback Loops00:54:35 Reducing Boilerplate & Writing Cleaner Code01:05:30 Productivity Tradeoffs & Time Optimization01:16:25 Using AI Effectively as an Engineer01:27:20 CI/CD, Automation & Developer Workflows01:38:15 Security, Vulnerabilities & Real Risks01:49:10 Building Systems That Last for Years02:00:05 Scaling Systems & Working with SubdomainsThanks for listening. Feel free to subscribe on YouTube or on MapForEngineers.com substack. See you next time.

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