How software engineering is changing: a tale of two eras

In an essay analyzing the impact of AI tools on daily software engineering, a developer compares their productivity and work habits across three companies, noting an elevenfold increase in merged pull requests at an AI-native startup. The author argues that while AI agents dramatically accelerate code generation and reduce reliance on traditional code reviews, they introduce new challenges including severe context switching, fragmented business context, and mental exhaustion. Open article →