My Thoughts on AI in 2026

Introduction

AI is everywhere right now. Every tool, every IDE, every workflow has some kind of AI integration baked in. But the conversation I keep hearing is very binary, you're either all in on AI or you're resisting it entirely. I think the reality is far more nuanced than that.

How you should be using AI depends heavily on where you are in your career. A junior developer and a senior developer have very different needs, very different gaps in their knowledge and very different responsibilities. Using AI the same way across all levels is a mistake, and I think it's one a lot of teams are making right now.

In this post I want to break down how I think developers at each stage of their career should be approaching AI tools in 2026.

Junior Developers — Build the Foundation First

This might be a controversial take, but I think it's more important than ever for junior developers to understand how to code. It's very easy to fall into the Vide coding trap, but I do feel you'd be robbing yourself of valuable knowledge. I think you'll get a lot further in your career if you can truly understand the languages and frameworks you've chosen.

So where should you start with AI? I think you should be using AI as your tutor, not your crutch.

Use it as a code reviewer, paste in your code and ask it to critique it. Use it to help you understand the codebase you've been dropped into. Ask it to explain patterns you don't recognise. Use it to break down complex concepts into something digestible.

But refrain from using it to write the code for you.

Here's why: the most critical skill you are building right now is the ability to read code and understand what it's doing. If you can't do that, you can't review what an agent produces. You can't spot when it's gone off track. You can't debug the subtle issues that AI-generated code will inevitably introduce.

There will come a time when you're expected to hand work off to agents and review what comes back. If you haven't built that foundational understanding, you won't know if the output is correct, idiomatic, or even safe. The developers who skipped learning the fundamentals will be the ones who struggle the most as agentic workflows become the norm.

So use AI to learn faster, not to skip learning.

Mid-Level Developers — Start Working with Agents

This is where it gets exciting. As a mid-level developer, you should be starting to use agentic tools. You've got the foundational knowledge, now it's time to expand what you can do with it.

Start thinking about what agents can automate for you. Get AI to help you plan out work, break down tickets, think through architecture, map out the steps before you write a line of code. Then pair program with the agent. Stay in the loop, but let the agent start doing the heavy lifting.

The key here is that you're still driving. You're making the decisions. The agent is accelerating your execution.

The big skill you can start to develop at this level is code review. Start reviewing the agent's work critically. Question what it's done. Ask it to explain its choices. Push back when something doesn't look right. This is the exact same skill set you'll need when you're reviewing your team's code as a senior developer.

Think of it as training for the next level, you're learning to evaluate and guide work rather than just produce it. That shift in mindset is what separates mid-level from senior, and AI gives you a safe space to practice it every single day. Plus it really helps you to build your code review skills, because spoiler alert as we use AI more and more the PR is going to be the bottleneck in most teams.

Senior Developers — Orchestrate and Multiply

As a senior developer, you should be using agents to the max. This is where you really lean into agent skills, commands, and workflows. Your focus should shift towards optimising not just your own output, but your entire team's.

A good chunk of your workload, I'd say 80-90%, can be offloaded to agents. The routine tasks, the boilerplate, the straightforward implementations. Let the agents handle it. But don't hand over 100%. You still need to be in the code so you can stay sharp, and importantly still understand what's being built.

What this gives you is something invaluable: time.

Time to sit with the junior developers and do proper PR reviews with them. Time to mentor. Time to run training sessions. Time to actually invest in your team's growth, something that always gets squeezed when you're buried in your own backlog.

And here's the part I think a lot of seniors will love, you finally get the ability to pick and choose. You can hand off the work that doesn't excite you and focus your hands-on coding time on the problems that genuinely interest you. The complex architecture decisions, the performance optimisations, the bits that made you want to be a developer in the first place.

Really invest in building out your agent workflows. Define skills and commands that your whole team can use. Make AI a force multiplier for the entire team, not just for yourself.

Closing

AI isn't going to replace developers. But it is going to change what we spend our time on at every level. The key is being intentional about how you use it based on where you are right now.

If you're junior then keep learning. Build the foundation that everything else depends on.

If you're mid-level then start collaborating with agents. Build the review and evaluation skills that will define your next step.

If you're senior then orchestrate. Free up your time to lead, mentor, and focus on the work that matters most.

The developers who get this right won't just be more productive, they'll be more fulfilled in their work too.

What to do now?

Take an honest look at where you are in your career and how you're currently using AI. Are you skipping steps? Are you not using it enough? Find the right balance for your level and be deliberate about it.

If you found this useful, share it with your team. Start a conversation about how AI fits into your workflow at different levels. The teams that figure this out together will be the ones that thrive.