Opinion: AI/ML Ambitions Should Not Come at the Cost of Software Engineering Basics

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A developer writing on DEV Community argues that the rush toward AI/ML careers is causing many aspiring engineers to skip core software engineering fundamentals. The author observes a common learning path that jumps straight from Python to machine learning and large language models, bypassing backend development, systems design, and computer science basics. Using a building analogy, the piece warns that AI systems built without strong engineering foundations are prone to scaling failures, security issues, and broken data pipelines. The author contends that AI/ML engineering is not a separate discipline but a specialization layered on top of software engineering principles. The post closes by asking the developer community whether early overspecialization in AI/ML is causing practitioners to forget that, at its core, they are still building software.

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