Engineer success now hinges on compute and token budgets, not just skill, devs warn
bendee983 · x · 2026-09-06
Developer bendee983 builds on dabit0's observation: when the difference between successful and unsuccessful engineers is no longer skill but access to compute and LLM tokens, we live in a different world.
- Frontier lab engineers flex billions of tokens consumed weekly and unrestricted access to unreleased models
- Other developers work with rate-limited products
- Beginners without income must rely on subpar free tools
dabit3 notes programming was once a meritocratic escape hatch regardless of class or location; now it's increasingly about what you can afford, and the gap snowballs. He wants to build systems making AI tools fairer and more accessible.
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