Is Stealing My Job?
Lately I’ve been feeling like AI is stealing my job.
In the last few months, I’ve probably spent less time writing code than I have at any point in my “coding” career. Of course, I’ve been shipping code, it’s just that AI is helping me to substantially cut down on the time it takes me to write it. This transition has happened so fast that I feel incredibly out of touch with what my “value add” is. Maybe you’ve felt the same way with AI in your work, or you’re beginning to see it on the horizon.
A year ago, for a given project, I would spend about 80% of my time writing code and 20% in high-level planning. This obviously made me think my value-add to a project was mostly in the writing of the code. Today, for any given project I’m now spending about half the time on high-level planning, and the rest is split between writing, reviewing, and testing code.
On one hand, this is a good thing. My mental resources are now spent more on planning and testing, rather than writing. I feel lucky to have the experience with code to know how to manage AI. And on the other hand, I can’t help but feel like I’m losing something. It’s less about the fact that I’m using AI (I’m pretty bullish on using it for dev work); it’s more how fast my role in the process is transitioning.
This year is going to be a wild one. I’ve truly never been more unsure / excited / anxious / hopeful about the future. I’m going to do my best to communicate with you as I process through it, in hopes that it’s helpful for you. And in the spirit of processing out loud, join me for either of my two live events this week… see below!
Keep Building,
Will
