I think it's definitely not as "cool", but it's almost a different problem class entirely since there's no correct answers here.
Knowing TCP connection protocols or deep compiler infra is impressive insofar as it's a mountain of knowledge that you've conquered and can stand on with a nice view, whereas "context engineering" and current AI engineering is a murky domain with no correct answers because... nobody alive knows the correct answers.
There's something different about wading forward into unexplored territory, or being able to establish techniques that nobody has attempted before. A lot of it will be noise or garbage (especially given a lot of it is LLM code), but I'd be careful to not mistake clever greenfield engineering with garbage simply because there's not a book written about it you can use as an oracle.
Knowing TCP connection protocols or deep compiler infra is impressive insofar as it's a mountain of knowledge that you've conquered and can stand on with a nice view, whereas "context engineering" and current AI engineering is a murky domain with no correct answers because... nobody alive knows the correct answers.
There's something different about wading forward into unexplored territory, or being able to establish techniques that nobody has attempted before. A lot of it will be noise or garbage (especially given a lot of it is LLM code), but I'd be careful to not mistake clever greenfield engineering with garbage simply because there's not a book written about it you can use as an oracle.