Modern Software Engineering
Something shifted. Everything I went to school for is changing, and I'm trying to make sense of it.
I’ve been heads down in Claude Code for the past two weeks. I remember when ChatGPT dropped — I thought that was shocking. Now that I’m actually using these tools every day, it feels like I have an extension of my brain. Things are moving so fast that my fingers are the limiting factor. I find myself talking most people’s ear off about it, and the ones who are using it and “get it” — I feel like I could talk with them for hours. It’s a strange feeling. It’s like unlocking an actual super power.
Things that would have taken weeks before are now done in minutes.
The shift
Something clicked for me recently. I realized that everything I went to school for — the way I learned to build software, the skills I spent years developing — the ground underneath all of it is moving. For me, the thing that changed wasn’t learning a new language or picking up a new framework. It was realizing that the skill that matters most now is being able to think in systems and direct these tools effectively.
I think the shift is just that fast and that hard to grasp until you’ve lived in it. I’m still making sense of it myself.
I’m writing this more as a time capsule than anything. We all say “can you imagine where we’ll be in 5 years?” I want a record of what this moment actually feels like.
How fast things move
Over the course of five days, I improved my workflow so much that looking back on how I was doing it before was almost embarrassing. I started on Claude Desktop and thought that was the way the tool was designed to be used. I was spinning up multiple sessions, didn’t quite understand how worktrees worked, but it was still useful. Once I got comfortable, it was clear I needed to switch to Claude Code.
Then I spent a few hours with it and was shocked. Here’s what the velocity looks like:
- A house blueprint planning app in 30 minutes. Not a mockup. A working app. I needed to visualize house dimensions on a plot and it was live on Vercel before my coffee got cold.
- Automated TestFlight deployments. I say “deploy my app to TestFlight” and it cuts a release with detailed release logs for the App Store. End to end. That’s a workflow that used to take me an afternoon to set up manually.
- A full personal website from scratch. This site — Astro, Tailwind, blog, multiple pages — built and deployed in a single session.
I have a list of ~30 project ideas I’ve been putting off for years. The kind of stuff that always felt like “I’ll get to that eventually.” Now they can each be built in a day. I’ve shipped more in the past two weeks than I have in the past year of side projects.
If it’s a problem, it can be solved
My mindset shifted from “how can I solve this?” to “I know I can solve this — I just have to communicate well enough to do it.”
I get the Claude commercials now. I’ve been saying “use the tools to build the tools” a lot. I’m convinced any problem can be solved. It’s now a matter of how well you can break it down and direct it into the sum of its parts.
For me, this is what modern software engineering feels like. I’m burning through several hundred thousand tokens a day and it doesn’t feel excessive — it just feels like how the work gets done now. And I know I’m still early. I can see how senior engineers working on complex systems would easily rip through that in a few hours. The ceiling on this is way higher than where I am.
What’s working for me
The thing that’s made the biggest difference isn’t knowing the most syntax or having the deepest expertise in one language. For me, it’s been the ability to break down a problem, compartmentalize it, weigh the options, and make decisions. That systems-driven thinking is what I keep coming back to.
I’ve been fortunate to build those muscles over the years — running Careers in Code, building operational systems at Hack Upstate, leading enterprise migrations at Equitable. Those experiences taught me to think in systems long before AI made it feel so relevant. And I owe a lot of that to Doug Crescenzi, who gave me the reigns of Hack Upstate and Careers in Code and let me run with it. He’s the one who taught me to think in systems — the ultimate mentor. So much of whatever success I’ve had traces back to what he showed me.
One thing I keep thinking about: I ran a coding bootcamp for six cohorts. If I were designing that curriculum today, I’d spend a lot more time on systems thinking and communication, and a lot less time on syntax. The ability to clearly articulate what you want to build is starting to feel just as valuable as the ability to write it by hand. Maybe that’s wrong — I’m still working through it. But it’s where my head is.
Cheers to the next wave
If you’re reading this and you feel what I’m describing — that strange, electric feeling of realizing the ground is shifting — lean into it. I don’t have all the answers, but I know the tools are here and the problems are solvable. Go build something.