DEV Community

Output is cheap. Judgment is the job. (opens in new tab)

Discussed on DEV

AI writes the code. You make the call. I rebuilt the entire site this month around that one sentence. Here is why, and what changed. For two years the pitch was "understand the systems you build." True, but soft. It did not answer the question every engineer is actually asking in 2026: if AI can write the code, what exactly is left for me to be good at? The answer is judgment. Output is cheap now. Anyone can generate a working function in thirty seconds. What nobody can generate for you is th...

Read the original article
Sign in to keep reading the full article.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Navigation

Next / previous post
j/k
Open post
oorEnter
Preview post
v

Post Actions

Love post
a
Like post
l
Dislike post
d
Undo reaction
u
Save / unsave
s

Recommendations

Add interest / feed
Enter
Not interested
x

Go to

Home
gh
Interests
gi
Feeds
gf
Likes
gl
History
gy
Changelog
gc
Settings
gs
Discover
gb
Search
/

General

Show this help
?
Submit feedback
!
Close modal / unfocus
Esc

Press ? anytime to show this help