AI is removing the middle class of software engineering

The author contrasts a 2020 vacation mess with a 2026 Monday morning: 7 PRs, one at 24,506 lines. AI removed the speed limit on bad decisions. Anyone can prompt an agent and ship something that looks functional, but no one knows where the data comes from or why Kafka was added. Reverting one bad call is far harder than generating it, and five more land while you fix it. The bet: AI widens the salary gap—good decision-makers become more valuable, while engineers who only implement become too expensive to hire.

Why it matters: A grounded, first-person engineering observation with concrete scenes and numbers, not generic 'AI will replace devs' fluff. Hits all three HKR axes, but it's a personal blog commentary, not a product launch or research breakthrough, so it lands in the 78-84 band. No cross-sou...