Radiant Panda asked
answered 1d ago
Hey Philip,
Quick background: I am a new grad Software Engineer (6 months experience)
I am super enthusiastic about AI and excited to what it will helps us build and innovate in the present and future. I feel the AI hype is at an unbelievable level, most of the development workflows have been shifted over to AI and agents. I loved coding and writing software, that part is what makes me love being Software engineer, I guess.
As a new grad SWE, I think I am missing out on some of the required experience that would help us really spot production errors or bugs. For example, during code reviews, to have developed a style, or thought of which code is bad and which is not, I think good amount of time is required to be vested into PR and develop the taste instead of relying on Agents wholly.
So, my approach has been, use AI but also try to understand the code in depth by giving good amount of time reading about it. This has dropped the rate at which I push PRs, but I have been deliberately delaying for my understanding and developing the taste / experience.
What do you think all the new junior engineers should focus on or balance the use of AI as well as develop the technical acumens regarding code and such.
Thanks a bunch. I have been following you for a while now :)
Philip's answer
Your approach is exactly right. As someone just starting in industry, how are you supposed to gain experience if you never look at code? It's fine and good for experienced engineers to not look at code output because they've already developed a sense for what things go wrong/etc, but how are you supposed to learn those things without ever seeing the code?
You're also right that this will make you slower in the short term than someone who ignores the code from day one straight out of college. But in several years, you will be the one who's gained deeper experience and can go farther.
The answer becomes much clearer if you look at how many non-coders get the vibecoding bug and than give up once the project is 85% done -- because inevitably, without a coding background, you'll often hit a wall at some point and be fundamentally unable to solve the issue because you lack some basic understanding. You are building yourself into the opposite of that person.