I enjoy building with AI, whether it's at my day job or with personal projects. Because it scratches the itch of the builder in me that I don't always get when I'm writing every line of code.

It means that I can step back, and think more about the problem I'm solving, the system design, and of course building faster than I would if I did it all by hand. That's definitely been something I've enjoyed at my day job, as delivering code is not a bottleneck^[1]. Now more emphasis is on your system design. Does it follow the existing standards and patterns? Can it be expanded later if the scope increases? It also gives you more time to think through edge-cases. Can the design handle them better, or can you build in the controls that ensure proper monitoring? Etc.

To some extent, it makes everyone an architect. And I think if you're abstracted away one level, where you are thinking more about how it behaves as part of a wider codebase and domain, you're less likely to make quick tradeoffs simply to deliver faster.

But there is one itch it doesn't scratch. At least not for me, and not yet.

It's the one where it's late at night, it's just you, you've got music playing on your headphones, and you're just programming. It's not always about building some big project, or working towards an idea that AI can help orchestrate and speed up.

Sure, it helps the builder that wants to build and ship products. But at least for me, writing prompts and coordinating agents isn't the same as actually getting into the code, and feeling like you're doing something.