09/01/2026
Coding is no longer the bottleneck in AI
Deciding what to build now matters more
These are distilled notes I took
from a Stanford CS230 lecture with Andrew Ng and Laurence Moroney.
AI didn't slow down.
Our thinking did.
Code is cheap.
Judgment isn't.
AI sped up software creation so much that the constraint moved:
from building things
to choosing the right thing to build
That's why roles are collapsing.
The most valuable engineers now:
talk to users
define the problem
write the spec
then write the code
Not faster typists.
Better decision-makers.
The job market didn't crash.
It corrected.
Hype hiring faded.
Delivery expectations rose.
What wins in 2025+:
deep understanding
business impact
shipping real work
Ideas are everywhere.
Finished systems are rare.
Vibe coding isn't free.
Fast code can still be bad code.
And bad code compounds debt.
Responsible AI isn't optional anymore.
It's a product and brand risk.
Reliability now comes from process:
clear intent
planned tool use
checking results
Not clever prompts.
The industry is splitting:
big models for scale
small models for control
Prompting plateaus.
Fine-tuning compounds.
Most AI projects fail.
Not because of models.
Because of bad decisions upstream.
AI removed the coding bottleneck.
It exposed the thinking one.
If you're upskilling:
learn to define problems
own outcomes end to end
optimize for judgment
Tools change fast.
Good decisions last.
I'm documenting what I'm learning as the AI landscape shifts.
Follow if you want more of this.
P.S. Link to the Stanford lecture in the comments.