The difference between coding and engineering lies in the focus on making something work versus making it work well, last long, and scale up.
Software engineers emphasize problem decomposition, scalability, efficiency, maintainability, trade-off analysis, and testing for reliability.
Mindset shifts for transitioning from a coder to an engineer include asking key questions before coding, practicing decomposition, writing self-explanatory code, improving code reviews, and building projects with constraints.
The key takeaway is that thinking like an engineer involves writing better, thoughtful, and scalable code rather than just writing more code.