Looking back on a year of change

artificial intelligence, retrospective, self-improvement

On AI

To say that 2025 has been a transformative year feels like an understatement. The Trump presidency, conflicts being "resolved," new conflicts starting, and AI everything.

The hype for AI already seems to be dwindling. Some people say it's clearly a bubble. Others say we just need a few more trillon and then we will reach paradise.

I am not smart enough to place a bet on these futures, but what I can say, with complete confidence, is that my profession, at the very least, is forever changed.

Within one year, I went from ~10% AI-enabled development to 90%. AI is reviewing my AI generated code driven by prompts generated and optimized by more AI. This has not been without significant engineering challenges. I have spent dozens of hours trying out new subagents, commands, this plugin, that plugin, and many different MCP servers. Now, I am learning a brand new skill: teaching Claude skills.

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All of this has been absolutely necessary to get the desired outcome. And this is where the Engineer can still provide tremendous value.

Who else understands the need for strict access controls in production?

Who else has the direct experience of working in a codebase that devolved into a big ball of mud?

And who else can (try) to prevent AI from speed-running the development of a big ball of mud?

It is the engineer. Our role has changed significantly since I graduated college. Within a decade, specialization seemed to all but disappear into the arbitrary "full-stack" job title. Now, we are "Product Engineers" expected to interface with the customer and code solutions. This has led us on a collision course with the "Technical Product Manager" role and AI continues to blur the boundaries. If I am a Product Engineer managing agents to build poduct, aren't I now a Technical Product Manager? If a TPM can leverage those same agents, doesn't that make them an engineer?

2025 has set the stage for large changes in how software is built. While we have seen the beginnings of this change, I think we are a year or two out before it becomes widespread. The current agents may not be AGI, or Super Intelligence (lol), but they are so powerful that it requires rethinking how we work as engineers and what our value proposition is to those we work for.

On Personal Growth

I will keep this section short(er). On a personal level, I made large changes to my habits to unlock more of my potential. The first half of the year was spent complaining about how I had no time - the second half was about making the time and ending the excuses.

Instead of praying that my son, who is part owl, would finally go to sleep early, I decided to wake up before everyone to work on personal projects or just make music. This has made a huge improvement to how I feel. I wake up at 4:45AM, 5 days a week, and work until 7AM. Then, I spend 7AM until 8:30 with the family, then work a typical 9 to 5 and then asleep by 10PM.

The morning work makes me energized for the rest of the day. My wife has noticed an improvement in my mood that I chalk up to trying to make my dreams a reality.

Goals for 2026

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