In conversation with another engineer, we were starting to lament that certain skills are atrophying as a result of ai-assisted development.

Though, the thought occured to me partway through:

For certain functionality, we import libraries. For others, we've handwritten solutions. Even so — sometimes we have to crack open the repo for a library to really dig in to what's going on. That seems to go for domain experts as well.

I think we've always been working with the scenarios of what's solved for us and what we need to solve manually. AI is certainly not an abstraction layer, but there are ways to use it where you are still driving, learning, and shipping.

There is indeed boiler plate that can be cranked out and skimmed. And, additionally, you likely know the areas where you want to slow down and take more time with.

I've linked this before, but it's worth resharing Birgitta Bockeler's article on this decision matrix.