Veteran engineer: juggling 17 projects with agents, deep thinking is a muscle I'm losing
rudrank · x · 2026-10-29
Software veteran @tmikov reflects on how working with coding agents is eroding his capacity for deep, focused thinking. He's now juggling 17 things at once, finding it exhausting and unrewarding.
- He used to thrive on "living with a problem" — holding every detail in memory and iterating for days.
- He still considers himself good at guiding agents, but the deep-focus skill he prized most is diminishing in value.
- He likens deep thinking to a muscle that atrophies without training, and asks whether new generations of engineers can afford to lose it.
A thoughtful take on how the agent era is reshaping engineering craft.
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