I'm Making Myself Replaceable

AI Doesn't Need to Get Smarter. We Just Need to Get Dumber.

I never seriously considered that AI could replace engineering jobs until now.

So what changed?

Not a breakthrough model.

Not some hyped-up coding agent.

Something quieter: I slowly stopped thinking.

I use AI at work for most things now. Sometimes it surfaces forgotten APIs or draws parallels in existing codebases you’ve never thought about.

Does it need handholding? Yes.

Would I trust it to code a self-driving car and then climb in blindfolded? No.

But this doesn’t mean it can’t do a ton of stuff very well, and that you should dismiss it.

So why do I think it could cost some engineering jobs?

Programming was a hobby for me back then.

I found joy in reading a source, even in languages I didn’t know. I think this drive to understand things contributed to my engineering career a lot.

But the other day I caught myself doing this:

Currently in development mode, when user queries are created, no usage items are generated. The usage_item table is empty. However, I do see entries in the usage table. Why is that?

Cursor swept through the code and gave me a beautifully generated markdown document, exactly telling me what’s happening.

Me, on the other hand?

I was stripped of the chance to explore a codebase that’s new to me, to find workarounds I could fix later, to see interesting solutions that might spark new ideas for future code.

I was stripped of the very experiences that made me a better engineer.

If we keep delegating to AI everything that turned us into good professionals, coding agents don’t have to outsmart us; we simply need to fall to their level.

Give a minute of thought to what made you a better engineer and see if you are outsourcing the thinking.

Until next time,
Akos

📰 Weekly shoutout

I hope to return to a weekly cadence with the newsletters.

Until then, make sure to check out writing from people who, unlike me, stayed consistent:

Fran Soto

,

Saurabh Dashora

,

Franco Fernando

,

Michał Poczwardowski

,

Anton Zaides

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