Software Engineering Isn't Dead — It's Becoming 'Plan and Review' [2026]

Every week, another breathless headline declares software engineering dead. Another AI demo shows a chatbot building a full-stack app in 90 seconds. Another LinkedIn thought leader posts a funeral wreath emoji next to the words "traditional coding." And every week, I watch senior engineers at real companies quietly doing something that looks nothing like those demos. They're not typing code line by line. But they're not being replaced, either. They're doing something I've started calling plan-an