Jalil Faquiri

My biggest worries about coding with AI: 1. Beginners not actually learning 2. Atrophy of skills I’m seeing #1 happen and I don’t have a good answer yet. Leveling up as an engineer requires grinding and it’s not always fun. If AI can solve most of the problems for you, when do you lean into the healthy friction? When do you embrace the suck? Coupled with fewer opportunities for pair programming, it’s definitely tougher for those starting their engineering career. It’s not all bleak though. Those with high agency are figuring it out and learning extremely fast. I just worry about the industry as a whole outside these folks. We need better products and better education. I’m hoping to try and do my part here. For #2, I’m definitely paranoid about this for myself. What will it feel like to build software in 5 years? Will I have forgotten someone of the skills I used to rely on? Maybe that won’t even matter because we will truly be operating at a higher level of abstraction. Even if that pans out, it’s always been important to deeply understand the systems/dependencies you’re building on. I normally talk about the stuff I’m optimistic for but think it’s good to have a healthy skepticism here.