Best Practices Are Someone Else's Context
A best practice is a compressed argument, and the compression drops the context that made it true. AI now hands me the answer instantly, argument discarded.
Busy Is Not the Same as Useful
I mistook a full calendar for a useful one for years. Then AI ate the busywork I was hiding behind and left me alone with the quiet part that actually mattered.
Your Estimate Was Never the Problem
I spent years chasing accurate estimates. The real failure was giving one number when I owed a range — and AI writing the code makes that honesty matter more.
Technical Debt Is a People Problem
I treated technical debt as bad code and my cleanups never held. It's fossilized human trouble — and AI writing our code widens that gap, not closes it.
Seniority Is Knowing What to Ignore
I spent years treating seniority as accumulation — more systems, more answers. The senior engineers I admired were better at ignoring, not knowing.
Code Review Isn't Reading Code
Code review isn't finding what's wrong with the code; it's reconstructing the problem someone was solving. Here's why that shift changed how I review.