🤖 The Post-Developer Era

Why human engineers remain essential, debunking myths, and navigating the future of tech careers.

Author

Travis Media
April 15, 2025

Hey everybody!

This week we’re digging into the truth behind AI’s role in dev work, how writing clear code beats being clever, and why the best engineers think differently. Plus, Meta’s back in court, and MVPs are coming under fire.

Let’s dive in!

Quick Links

🤖 The Post-Developer Era
Feeling anxious about the future of dev work in the age of AI? You’re not alone. In his latest blog, Josh Comeau takes a hard look at the the job market. Despite flashy headlines like “AI Writes Over 25% of Code at Google,” the reality is simpler: humans are still in the driver’s seat. AI doesn’t replace devs, it assists them. When no-coders hit a wall, it’s devs who step in to fix the chaos.

🧑‍⚖️ Meta antitrust trial kicks off in federal court
The FTC is taking Meta to court Monday over its old deals buying Instagram and WhatsApp which is a pretty huge deal. At stake? Meta could be forced to break up, undoing two of its biggest acquisitions ever. Zuck’s defense is that the apps only grew so quickly because of Meta’s support, and there is still plenty of competition. Meanwhile, he’s also been cozying up to Trump, making the timing even more interesting.

🚦 Don’t wrote clever code
Engineer’s Codex once put it perfectly, Leetcode one-liners might look impressive, but they’re code golf, not good software. Early on, he thought mastery meant writing those clever, unreadable lines, until he learned clarity is king. Turns out, the clearest code is the hardest to write, and it only comes from experience, a strict style guide, and painful-but-helpful code reviews. Senior engineers write simpler code for a reason.

🧑‍💻 The Best Programmers I Know
Endler.dev has met countless devs, he asked himself: What truly sets the best apart? So he wrote down the core traits of exceptional engineers, hoping to guide others and save them the trial-and-error he went through.

🤔 A case against MVPs: Why I’ve grown to hate “The Lean Startup”
“The Lean Startup” is a go-to for newbie PMs, laying out lean dev basics and startup life realities. But here’s the catch: it also sparked a toxic MVP obsession, shipping just to ship, often at the cost of real value. MVPs aren’t evil, but they’re not always the answer either. Bart Krawczyk dives into the downsides and offers better, experience-backed alternatives.

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More Reading

State of Kubernates Jobs

You may have noticed that I've been uploading a lot of Kubernetes content recently. Well, you may have missed my video on the state of Kubernetes jobs in 2024, which I still think is really relevant.

In this video, we're going to look at an analysis of 293 job listings, all that REQUIRE Kubernetes experience, and learn what particular skills you need to know and which particular skills you can skip. Whether you are a Software, DevOps, or Platform Engineer, these findings will apply to you.

Until next week,

Travis.

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