Careers
AI is the great leveller
Junior engineers are starting to produce work approaching senior engineers, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to tell which engineer produced what code.
Junior engineers are starting to produce work approaching senior engineers, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell which engineer produced what code.
This is a daunting moment for a senior engineer, trying to protect the things that differentiated them and made them successful.
What seniors still have
senior engineers normally understand that the very best code is no code at all - juniors and AI simply don’t understand these battle scarsSenior engineers still understand the key reasoning behind the code - the why - and in large, complex enterprise systems this can often be more important than the what.
The fear underneath
Solving complex problems with code as a differentiator is slipping away. I’ve already had senior engineers coming to me saying, “I don’t want to be writing code in five years’ time.” What I think they really mean is: “I don’t want to have to start learning again”.
Embracing change
I feel the pain. Everybody is on their own journey with AI. I’ve always loved change. I liken this to the early days of the internet.
But for some, I appreciate change is not welcome, and they want things to be stable.
My advice is the same I give myself: never get too comfortable. Everything can change in an instant. The only variables you can control are to stay flexible and stay curious.
Whenever you feel you’ve attained mastery - you are at your most vulnerableyou should always have more to learn and always have the humility to recognise it - when you have too much to lose.
We must always continue to adapt and grow, because we never know what could be just around that corner.