by jorl17 | 2026-03-07 07:47:44+00:00
In my experience, the truly best in class have gone from being 10x engineers to being 100x engineers, assuming they embrace AI. It's incredible to watch.

I wouldn't say I'm a 10x-er, but I'm comfortable enough with my abilities nowadays to say I am definitely "above average", and I feel beyond empowered. When I joined college 15 years ago, I felt like I was always 10 steps ahead of everyone else, and in recent years that feeling had sort of faded. Well, I've got that feeling back! So much of the world around me feels frozen in place, whereas I am enjoying programming perhaps as much as when I learned it as a little kid. I didn't know I MISSED this feeling, but I truly did!

Everything in my daily life (be it coding or creating user stories — who has time to use a mouse when you can MCP to JIRA/notion/whatever?) is happening at an amazing speed and with provable higher levels of quality (more tests, better end-user and client satisfaction, more projects/leads closed, faster development times, less bug reports, etc.). I barely write lines of code, and I barely type (often just dictate to MacWhisper).

I completely understand different people like different things. Had you asked me 5 years ago I probably would have told you I would be miserable if I stopped "writing" code, but apparently what I love is the problem solving, not the code churning. I'm not trying to claim my feelings are right, and other people are "wrong" for "feeling upset". What is "right" or "wrong" in matters of feelings? Perhaps little more than projection or a need for validation. There is no "right" or "wrong" about this!

If I now look at average-to-low-tier-engineers, I think they are a mixed bag with AI on their hands. Sometimes they go faster and actually produce code as good as or better than before. Often, though, they lack the experience, "taste" or "a priori knowledge" to properly guide LLMs, so they churn lots of poorly designed code. I'd say they are not a net-positive. But Opus 4.6 is definitely turning the tide here, making it less likely that average engineers do as much damage as before (e.g. with a Sonnet-level model)

On top of this divide within the "programming realm", there's another clear thing happening: software has finally entered the DIY era.

Previously, anyone could already code, but...not really. It would be very difficult for random people to hack something quickly. I know we've had the terms "Script kiddies" for a long time, but realistically you couldn't just wire your own solution to things like you can with several physical objects. In the physical world, you grab your hammer and your tools and you build your DIY solutions — as a hobby or out of necessity. For software...this hadn't really been the case....until now! Yes, we've had no-code solutions, but they don't compare.

I know 65 year olds who have never even written a line of code that are now living the life by creating small apps to improve their daily lives or just for the fun of it. It's inspiring to see, and it excites me tremendously for the future. Computers have always meant endless possibilities, but now so many more people can create with computers! To me it's a golden age for experimentation and innovation!

I could say the same about music, and art creation. So many people I know and love have been creating art. They can finally express themselves in a way they couldn't before. They can produce music and pictures that bring tears to my eyes. They aren't slop (though there is an abundance of slop out there — it's a problem), they are beautiful.

There is something to be said about the ethical implications of these systems, and how artists (and programmers, to a point?) are getting ripped off, but that's an entirely different topic. It's an important topic, but it does not negate that this is a brand new world of brand new artists, brand new possibilities, and brand new challenges. Change is never easy — often not even fair.