Do you use AI coding tools?
I do.
Using AI to write software every single day for months has taught me a lot. It’s changed some of my opinions, and significantly upgraded the way I think about modern software engineering.
Here’s two things I’ve learned:
AI can be both overhyped and powerful. It’s extraordinarily useful, when handled correctly.
AI is a call for devs like us to deepen & upgrade our fundamental skillset: engineering.
AI coding can help devs like you produce code faster, better, more useful than before…and code that’s potentially much more dangerous, too. Technical debt. Wasted time, energy, and effort.
A tool like Claude Code can be your best friend, or the worst teammate you’ve ever had.
It’s all in how you use it.
Most devs start AI coding the wrong way
In my experience, there are two main errors that most devs make with AI coding tool:
01
Error #1: They delegate everything.
02
Error #2: They delegate nothing.
When devs make the first error, they’re excited. Seduced by the idea “code is cheap.” They build and build and ship and ship, and before they know it, they’re drowning in spaghetti code that they don’t understand, so twisted up that even AGI couldn’t fix it.
When devs make the second error, they’re worried. They know how easy it is to get swamped by technical debt. They don’t trust Claude Code, and they don’t trust their process for developing with it. So they try to hold everything in their head, and before they know it, they’re overwhelmed and burnt out.
Both of these approaches are reactive, and you don’t need decades of experience to know what happens when dev teams operate in reactive mode.
What you need is to design your own proactive, productive middle path. Neither YOLO nor OH NO.
A confident path, because you can trust your experience, your skills, your process, and your tools (in that order). In other words, the engineer’s path.
When you take the engineer’s path, you can get extraordinary results from Claude Code:
faster development
better automated tests
higher quality software
more fun, less grind
Best of all, you’ll free up time to focus on your highest-value work: planning, designing, and actual engineering.
