{
  "id": 869223,
  "title": "My Job Hasn't Changed. My Day Has.",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/14/my-job-hasnt-changed-my-day-has",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-08-14T12:25:08.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/jensreynderstech/my-job-hasnt-changed-my-day-has-1ci3"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "My job hasn't changed, but my day certainly has. My role and focus are evolving, and the impact I make is shifting as well. I still build products that drive impact, however, my daily routine looks significantly different. The transition is inevitable, whether you're ready for it or not. Regardless of whether you can adapt, the responsibility is entirely yours.\n\nPreviously, I was deeply involved in coding, which consumed the majority of my time. While I enjoyed building products, that's no longer the case. Nowadays, AI agents handle the majority of coding tasks. I barely write code anymore in the past half year or even longer. My focus has shifted from product development to creating my own processes. Instead of spending my day on Slack and emails, I've created a system of scheduled agents that provide me with a briefing before I even open my laptop. Instead of scrutinizing each line of code in a pull request, I've implemented a review loop where agents conduct the initial review, and I'm only responsible for addressing their flagged issues. This approach is a result of incremental improvements rather than a grand strategy. Each improvement saves time, which I then invest into the next small enhancement—this compounding effect is more impactful than a grand plan.\n\nMy daily question is straightforward: how can I improve my job by a small margin today compared to yesterday? I don't aim for more or faster; I focus on being better. I also eschew running multiple AI workflows concurrently on different projects, as I believe that's not what a serious AI-software engineer does. Instead, I concentrate on one project at a time, recognizing the mental capacity I have and embracing it as a strength, not a weakness. My impact has shifted from writing code to enhancing the team's performance. Time previously spent on implementation is now redirected upstream, where I spend more time ensuring we're building the right product in the first place—more time in front of the client to understand their needs, less time assuming I already know because I've built something similar before. Greater attention is given to how the product is used rather than merely what the ticket describes. As a tech lead, my impact is measured by my team's performance and the health of the product and codebase. In the past, this was challenging due to code delivery expectations. Now, I have more time and mental space to focus on creating the optimal conditions for my team: ensuring a setup that allows for fast progress without compromising quality, providing sufficient context for them to make informed decisions without constant oversight, and ensuring that review time is spent on significant issues rather than trivial formatting concerns. I build less and design more of the environment in which others build. This isn't a new kind of impact, but a different kind—a more substantial lever than anything I could achieve alone.\n\nSo, if not a coder, what am I? Primarily, I'm a decision-maker. Engineers have always automated the mundane parts of the job, leaving them to avoid repetitive tasks. AI agents represent the next level of automation. I hand agents the execution—writing the implementation, conducting the initial review, drafting reports. What remains mine is the follow-up and the outcome—whether the solution effectively addresses the problem, maintains quality, and is worth shipping. That's the evolution of my role: I get paid for my judgment, not just output. The code was always a means to an end, and now it consumes far less of my day. This change in perspective is the honest answer to how my job differs from two years ago and why I believe it's a positive development. I enjoy that my impact has increased, I appreciate the opportunity to focus on outcomes rather than just outputting code, and my favorite part is still tinkering and building—just in a different way.",
  "summary": "Times are changing, my role is changing, my focus is changing, my impact is changing. But in essence – I'm still doing the same. I still build products that drive impact. Only my day-to-day looks completely different. The shift is happening, sooner or later, if you want it or not. Whether or not you can cope, is all up to you. In the past, I was neck-deep in code. That was what the majority of my…",
  "key_points": [
    "My role evolved from coding to process creation",
    "AI agents handle coding, I focus on improving team performance",
    "Daily question: how to improve job by small margin each day"
  ],
  "editors_take": "The shift to AI-driven coding has elevated the author's role from a coder to a decision-maker, allowing them to focus on high-level outcomes, team performance, and product impact.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}