Coding is Dead
I haven't opened a code editor in weeks. AI writes all my code. But my passion was never about writing code — it was about building cool things.
Coding has always been a core part of my identity.
I learned to program in elementary school. My first website was all about Club Penguin hacks, then I moved to building apps, games, and finally "became serious" by studying Computer Science at UCLA.
It was hard.
Most of the time, when I wanted to create something new, I sat down, opened up W3 Schools, StackOverflow, and Youtube. I spent hours watching lectures & videos, reading textbooks, and banging my head into a wall trying to debug why everything was broken.
New ideas took weeks (if they were ever completed) and the inertia to get started prevented me from trying and building new things.
But in the last few months everything changed.
For most of my life, being an engineer meant sitting down, opening an editor, and writing in another language. One that machines could speak. And it was fun. Getting into a late-night flow, headphones on, and cranking out a new feature was a level of satisfying hard to put into words.
But now? I haven't opened a code editor in weeks. AI writes all my code.
Because of tools like Claude Code and Codex, I've had to sit with an uncomfortable question. If I'm not the one writing the code, what's my job? Where does my passion go?
I've come to realize my passion wasn't writing code. It was about building cool things.
Code was just the means. It translated the ideas I had in my head into something real. It was a tax on creation - only those who invested the time and burdened themselves with the frustration of programming could build something.
And now? Anyone can create.
Coding as we know it is dead. Today, I can spin up multiple AI agents, walk away from my computer, and come back to a fully finished, high-quality piece of tested software that works perfectly.
Now, my job as an engineer is about nailing what we "should" build rather than what we "can" build. Focusing on the direction rather than the implementation details.
This is going to be a hard shift for a lot of engineers who attach their identity to the act of programming itself versus building things and delivering value. I hope these people to make the shift towards being AI-native and challenge their assumptions about what's possible.
When everyone can create, the floor of what's possible raises. And the ceiling even more. A single non-technical person can now do something that would take a few engineers. And now a single, empowered engineer can create things that used to take an entire company.
Engineering is about building the right thing, at the lowest cost, with the highest quality. So if you're willing to drop your ego about what "real programming" is, AI just gave us all superpowers.