The last half of my career has been very different from the first half. Generative AI is a main reason why. The difference is as if I’m living in a world where you had to wait 30 minutes to download a megabyte file. It has been transformative. Personally, I’m enjoying most of it.

I have minor opinions on whether AI will replace me, but I won’t share them because its boring and those opinions are in abundance. What I can share is that I’m having a blast using this stuff. I’m more confident in doing unknown things, I’m developing a lot faster, and I can slack off by rewatching scenes from The Wire.

Although I can’t shake this feeling that I’m becoming a worse engineer. Sure, I can do many things a lot faster and have fewer blockers, which frees up time to do other things. However, if the only thing I’m doing with that time is watching Jayson Tatum 2024 mid post offensive highlights. Doesn’t sound like the best use of time, honestly.

I think I’m doing ok so far. I’m pretty lucky to have had a “normal” software engineering career before the introduction of AI. It’s as if the developers who knew what the world was like before AI but are not super cynical of AI are having a better time adapting to the new world. On top of that, I’m being a little bit more intentional of design and architecture of things. Perhaps I won’t end up being a worse engineer, but an engineer who takes time to understand all the things around me because AI can write code a lot better than me. Time will tell.