Coding Isn’t the Only Way to Think
I understand some are having a hard time with the thought of the change in coding…as if using AI means “build me a fart app” is all that’s left of the career you loved. I have good news. Your excellent mind, that problem solving super computer of flesh - will continue to be your meal ticket long into the future.
Here was my evening. I’m in the middle of a very difficult project. 20 other projects depend on mine. Visibility at the VP level of a Fortune 500 company. Crazy amount of human coordination - and I say that from a 40 years in the business perspective. With a month before due date, we are going back to square one and redoing the requirements.
One of my struggles is AI written code. Yep, tis true. I have code, it gives data, but the requirements are shifting and my ability to shift quickly is hampered by not fully understanding the code. Which is due to not having fully understood the requirements and having to come up with SOMETHING out of the vagueness.
But now - I have clarity. We have a definition of done and a series of “x, then y, then z”. I think through - how can I make a completely auditable pipeline. Every step must not just transform data, but be able to show the data at every step. Every step must document how and why it coded the way it was to meet that part of the requirement. Data artifacts at every stage that can be examined, defended or discovered to not be correct. About 200,000 people are going to be effected when this goes into production. A couple million dollars of cost avoidance is on the line. They have tried and failed to do this project a few times and several years.
So, on my own computer, I define exactly the approach that makes sense, all the features I want the solution to have. My thoughts on how to get to that solution. And I work with my AI agents to create the product-definition, architectural design, project plan and sprint plan. I don’t have access to the company data from my personal system so I have to design in such away to have a scaffold that can then be finished by the company’s approved coding agent on the company laptop inside the company security.
My AgentFlow methodology continues to improve as I build systems, meet failures and friction or poor quality, and I come up with solutions. When AI doesn’t work I don’t default to “AI sucks” - I start engineering solutions.
After all this work, advancing my project a full week, maybe two - I then have the AI tool write up a case study. One I get involved and make my own edits - then give to Claude CoWork to turn into a polished “show to the VP’s” quality case study.
I do this work, full of thinking and problem solving and all the satisfaction that comes to engineers when we do this. I would not have thought any more had I just did the coding. I would have simply gotten a LOT less done. In two days I will have revamped the solution, made it bullet proof, better than before by a mile (a mile I built with AI tools). Thinking under pressure, and delivering the impossible. It’s a good time to have a fine mind, a coder’s mind.
