E13 - Are You Behind on AI? Probably Not
In this episode of Fundamentals of Software Engineering, Nate and I dig into a feeling almost every developer has right now: that everyone else is further ahead on AI. New models, agents and protocols seem to arrive every week, and between the two of us we make a lot of content about this stuff and still feel behind. We start with what I call social media driven development, the stream of posts about coding agents that cleared three issues overnight or SaaS apps built while someone slept, and why treating those as a benchmark will always leave you feeling behind. From there we talk about why this industry has always moved fast, why you cannot learn everything, and how setting career goals lets you work backwards to what actually deserves your time. We also get honest about burnout, time boxing your exploration, and why sometimes the right call is to close the laptop and go touch grass.
Then we get practical. We cover prioritizing what your company asks you to learn, leaning on a network of people you trust, and taking AI doomsday headlines with a grain of salt. Nate explains how the Thoughtworks Technology Radar gets made, from blips submitted by technologists working with real clients to the debates that decide what makes the cut, and why Agile practices like testing and frequent check ins with your product owner matter even more when code can be generated this fast. I share a talk we saw at Commit Your Code from the PGA Tour, whose engineers started their agent on simple issue triage and only handed it harder tickets as their confidence grew. We finish on blast radius, why a startup and a Fortune 500 enterprise should not read the same amount of code, and why it is worth giving yourself some grace.
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Key Highlights
📱 Social media driven development: Posts about agents fixing issues overnight or apps built in your sleep are written for engagement. Measure yourself against them and you will always feel behind, when most of us are somewhere in the middle.
📚 You cannot learn everything: Set career goals and work backwards to what deserves your time. Technologies are like buses: another one comes along in ten or fifteen minutes, so it is fine to let some waves go by.
🔋 Burnout is real, so time box exploration: Every evening spent on a new LLM is time you cannot spend on something else. Sometimes the right choice is friends, family, or a walk.
🤝 Let your network be the filter: Trusted friends and a daily AI news brief tell you what is worth a closer look, so you are not drinking from the fire hose or falling down every rabbit hole.
📡 How the Thoughtworks Technology Radar is made: It starts as blips from technologists using things on real client work, then gets debated down twice a year. There is no pay to play, which is why it stays so objective.
🏌️ The PGA Tour's agent earned its trust: Their engineers started the agent on issue triage, then low priority tickets, and only moved up to critical ones as confidence grew. None of it happened overnight.
💥 Stakes decide how much code you read: A startup with six months of runway can move fast, but a core pricing engine deserves scrutiny on every line. Tests, build results and observability are how you read the rest.
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Resources & Next Steps
🌐 fundamentalsofswe.com for the book, the podcast and the YouTube channel
📡 Thoughtworks Technology Radar
📕 If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares
🎤 Commit Your Code conference, run by Danny Thompson
🛠️ Tools mentioned: Claude Code, Copilot, OpenAI Codex, Perplexity and NotebookLM
✈️ Catch Dan and Nate at Dev2Next, Porto Tech Hub and QCon San Francisco
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Chapter Timestamps
00:00 Are you behind on AI? Probably not
02:42 The book turns one, and conferences coming up
07:33 The question of the day: do you feel behind on AI
08:25 Social media driven development
10:37 You cannot learn everything, so set career goals
13:19 Why every new tool floods your feed
17:00 Burnout and time boxing your exploration
20:09 Prioritize what your job asks of you first
22:19 Lean on your network
23:27 Taking AI doomsday claims with a grain of salt
27:17 The two sides of AI for software engineers
31:00 There are no dumb questions
33:35 Learning what the career you want demands
35:25 Every language you learn makes the next one easier
36:55 A daily AI brief instead of the rabbit hole
39:46 How the Thoughtworks Technology Radar is made
43:15 Agile practices matter more, and nobody is an expert yet
46:05 How the PGA Tour eased agents into its workflow
51:03 Startups vs enterprises: why the stakes matter
52:26 Reading code and earning trust in your agent
56:44 Give yourself some grace
58:13 Dad joke and wrap up