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Stand Out in the Age of AI

5 min read

Devops

AI writes Terraform. You own the runbooks, the incident response, and the 'why did this break at 3am?' judgment. Be that person.

Tech Writer

AI drafts docs. You own accuracy, tone, and the docs that engineers actually use. Empathy for the reader wins.

Solutions Eng

AI generates demos. You own the discovery call, the 'what does the customer actually need?' and the relationship. Relationships don't scale with AI.

Stand Out in the Age of AI

TL;DR

  • AI writes the code. You own the why, the what, and the so what. Those questions are your differentiation.
  • Communication, ownership, and curiosity beat raw coding speed. Those don't commoditize.
  • The juniors who get promoted are the ones who make their manager's job easier — not just the ones who close tickets.

When everyone can generate a React component, what makes you worth keeping? The answer isn't "code more." It's "own more of the problem."

Own the Questions, Not Just the Answers

AI is great at "given a spec, produce code." It's terrible at "what should we actually build?" and "why does the user care?" and "what happens when this breaks in prod?"

Your job is to ask those questions before AI writes a single line. The junior who raises a hand in planning and says "wait, have we thought about X?" is the one who gets remembered.

Be the Person Who Connects Dots

Cross-team coordination, stakeholder updates, translating between product and engineering — none of that is automatable. AI can't sit in a meeting and sense that the PM is about to change scope. You can.

Juniors who volunteer to own a small piece of communication — release notes, sprint summaries, bug triage updates — become indispensable. It's not glamorous. It works.

Curiosity as a Skill

"Where does this data come from?" "Why did we choose this library?" "What happens if this fails?" — these questions seem basic. Most people don't ask them. The ones who do become the people others go to for context.

Priya doesn't have to know everything. She has to want to know. That's the differentiator.

Quick Check

When everyone can generate a React component, how does a JUNIOR stand out?

You take tickets. You implement. You close. You're good. So are 10 others. When layoffs come, you're a number.

Click "Problem owner" to see the difference →

Do This Next

  1. In your next planning or standup, ask one question that isn't about your own task. "How does this connect to X?" "What's the fallback if Y fails?" Practice being the person who thinks one level up.
  2. Volunteer for one "boring" communication task — release notes, triage, a doc update — and do it well. Track whether anyone notices. They will.