Why AI is Forcing us back to Basic Computer Science?
The industry no longer needs thousands of junior developers who only know how to spin up a boilerplate. AI has completely commoditized the surface layer of software engineering.
We spent the last decade optimizing for speed. We taught an entire generation of engineers how to glue endpoints together and build web applications as quickly as possible.
Now artificial intelligence can do that exact same job in seconds.
I recently sat down for a deep discussion with Pratik Kale to talk about the brutal reality of the modern hiring market.
The industry no longer needs thousands of junior developers who only know how to spin up a boilerplate.
AI has completely commoditized the surface layer of software engineering.
The market is aggressively shifting back to deep computer science fundamentals.
In the podcast we break down exactly why the future belongs to the engineers who understand the physics of the machine.
We discuss why knowing the exact 14 kilobyte limit of a TCP (Initial Congestion Window initcwnd) is the only way to genuinely optimize first paint frontend load times.
We dive into why the V8 engine treats JavaScript objects like C++ structs and how ignoring that destroys your memory allocation.
If your only skill is writing basic application code you are competing against an algorithm that never sleeps.
If you understand how a compiler evaluates code step by step and how operating systems manage dynamic cache you become irreplaceable.
An AI can generate a thousand lines of code but it takes a human architect to understand the memory footprint and the networking throughput of that code in a production environment.
We also discussed why most startup MVPs fail and how finding a cofounder with an opposite personality is the only way to survive the business side of engineering.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this shift. Are you seeing the exact same fundamental skill gap in your recent engineering interviews.
I would highly recommend to visit Pratik’s YouTube channel for more such content, and do subscribe if you like what you see there 🙏