The jarring experience of developing today

I'm faster, but also feel a little sad.

I've been transitioning from a traditional individual contributor to a coding agent orchestrator. I'm curious if you experience this too.

The joy of coding

The flow. It's the magic that has kept me excited about coding in the last decade. If you're a coder you know it. If you're not; try Factorio and it'll connect.

Those moments when you're so deep in work, suddenly it's 2am and you realized you forgot dinner. 🥺 Those are the best.

This is why I code. It feels like play.

But I feel like this flow-state is transitioning from a valuable lever to a distraction.

Disruption in my domain

I've always been of the opinion that job disruption by a technology that is magnitudes more productive is good.

If we wouldn't allow innovation, we would all still be farming to secure food for our families.

Now it's happening to my profession. And it's jarring.

2025: the year of tipping over

I have to admit something; my first Cursor subscription only started in March 2025 🙈.

I dabbled with AI agents before but wrote it off as premature technology.

This changed for me in 2025.

In March I started using Cursor over Copilot. Autocompletion is cool, but it was a marginal improvement, not 10x.

Cursor felt different. Out of the door I could let it write bigger chunks of boilerplate. Unit test suites that would cover extensive edge cases; traditionally less-fun work but necessary.

Leaving it to implement bigger full-stack features often led to disappointing results. Human equivalents would get fired. Reviewing and fixing its code cost me frequently more time than building it myself would.

Here's a classic one:

const ClassicMistakeComponent = ({ someProp: unknown }) => {
  const [state, setState] = useState()

  useEffect(() => {
    // Syncing prop to state for no reason — just use the prop directly. Classic AI garbage.
    if (state !== someProp) {
      setState(someProp)
    }
  }, [someProp])

  // Some render based on state, and therefore someProp
}

The twist for me: Claude Code and Opus 4.5

It was last November when I gave Claude Code another chance. The first time I tried it a few months prior was a failure.

But the 4.5 release, especially with affordable Opus access, felt like a massive step up.

During a new project with lots of separate features I took the plunge and started using Claude Code at maximum capacity using git worktree. It's a way to have multiple agents work at the same time on the same codebase without them getting in each other's way.

I felt single tasks were done 10x faster than if I would do them. I had 3 parallel agents solve such complex problems at the same time.

That's roughly a 30x improvement in time. Napkin math, sure, but we're talking a magnitude here.

Life as I know it is over

I worked as a product manager & tech lead in the past where I didn't code. Honestly, I didn't like it too much.

That 'flow' state I mentioned in the beginning was peak joy for me during coding.

But right now, no matter how good I am as a single developer, that flow state is becoming a waste of time. A distraction in our journey to maximum productivity.

Instead I can run 4 agents in parallel with complex tasks who deliver in at least 1/6th the time I do.

Coding as I know it is over.

I'm only 10 years into my career

At only 20% of my professional lifespan (if we focus on traditional metrics) I feel uneasy. AI coming for my job is not a future thought, it has already happened.

I'm managing more and more, coding less and less. Not out of want, but out of necessity.

The speed of change is what freaks me out most of all.

2022 had mind-blowing chat experiences.
2023 had amazing single-html file demos.
2024 had useful autocomplete.
2025 had me outsourcing boilerplate code.
2026 has me grabbing a coffee while Claude gets shit done.

What does 2027 look like?