The Art Of Winning In Tech

There has never been a better time to be a software [music] engineer. I know

everyone's scared about the whole AI wave, but if you're anything like me, you got interested in software because of the ability [music] to make something real, something another person could actually use, something that could blow up and change the world, all while just

needing a laptop and an idea. [music]

And that has never been more achievable than now. What used to take a team of

than now. What used to take a team of five can now take one [music] person.

What used to take years of learning syntax and documentation and writing every single line by hand, you can now do in a fraction of the time. [music]

And trust me, I know everywhere you look and all over the comments of this video, people are going to say software developers will be completely wiped out.

But the ones getting wiped out by the AI wave aren't losing [music] because they're bad developers, they're losing because that world of software is fading out. But the people winning, you know

out. But the people winning, you know that one guy in your classes with [music] five internships and a job lined up, or the guy who built something real enough that a company just hired them for it, or the back-end engineer at a normal tech company who [music] became

so productive with AI that they now own systems they would have never touched, or the random developer charging [music] $50 a month for a tool they built in a weekend, or the founders chasing a vision that they actually [music] believe in with a team of two instead of

20, they're all winning for the same reason. They understood the new rules

reason. They understood the new rules faster about what to build, how to build it, and how to use every resource available to close the gap between [music] where they are and where they want to be. So, instead of getting wiped out by this new wave of software engineering,

picture two types of people. The first

person is the spectator. [music] For

whatever reason, they never fully leaned into the AI wave, and honestly, part of it's probably because the entire space feels overwhelming. They hear LLMs, rag

feels overwhelming. They hear LLMs, rag agents GPT Claude OpenAI Anthropic and after a certain point, it just all starts blending into one giant [music] cloud of AI words. Or they've been told that using AI somehow makes them a worse

programmer, so they keep their distance from it. But on the other hand, you have

from it. But on the other hand, you have the surfer. [music] The surfer

the surfer. [music] The surfer understands that this is a field built on abstraction. Nobody calls you a fake

on abstraction. Nobody calls you a fake programmer for using frameworks or libraries, Stack Overflow, random open source code where you don't even know how it works. So, instead of resisting the wave, they learn how to move with

it. They use AI to learn fundamentals

it. They use AI to learn fundamentals faster, to experiment faster, to close the gap between what they can imagine and what they can actually [music] build. Maybe you're building web apps

build. Maybe you're building web apps and you use AI to scaffold an entire dashboard in a day. Or maybe you're building a game engine and using AI to help explain some brutal graphics concept [music] that would have taken you hours to decode from documentation

alone. The leverage looks different

alone. The leverage looks different depending on the field, but the surfers regardless are experimenting. They're

shortening the distance between idea and execution. They have an idea and

execution. They have an idea and immediately test it. They automate

boring parts of their workflow. They use

AI to understand unfamiliar code bases faster, to research faster, to prototype faster, to debug [music] faster, to learn faster. Their feedback loops are

learn faster. Their feedback loops are insanely short, and that matters because software engineering is becoming more and more of a creativity game. In the

sense that the people that are winning are the people noticing things, connecting things, building weird tools that nobody even thought of before, and following curiosity fast enough before the excitement [music] disappears.

Because a few years ago, if you wanted to test an ambitious idea, the barrier was enormous. Now, some random student

was enormous. Now, some random student can lock in for a weekend and actually build something that thousands [music] of people use. And I think a lot of developers still haven't adjusted to how insane this shift actually is. They're

still waiting until they [music] know enough or until they master that one language or framework or just completely distancing themselves from this [music] new wave of technology. Meanwhile, the

surfers moving the fastest are already in the water, building, testing, learning, shipping, adjusting. Because

programming is becoming less about manually typing every brick [music] yourself and more about what should exist in the first place. Bottleneck is

no longer, can you write the code? It's

can you [music] think clearly? Can you

recognize good ideas? Can you move on them quickly? Can you learn fast enough

them quickly? Can you learn fast enough to keep up with your own ambition?

Because AI doesn't remove the need for builders. If anything, it raises the

builders. If anything, it raises the ceiling for the ones that actually [music] build. But adapting to this new

[music] build. But adapting to this new wave isn't just about using AI. It's

about learning how to think clearly while using it, which is why you need to You can't just build in silence anymore.

[music] The people getting opportunities right now, like internships, referrals, startup roles, even research positions, are often [music] the ones who are most visible. They're building their projects

visible. They're building their projects and they're also posting it on LinkedIn or they're doing short demo [music] videos on Twitter or maybe they're just writing about random things that they learn from a class or a bug or a failed project or a random opinion that they

have about program. Not because they're influencers, but it signals that this person is actively [music] building. And

in this new era of software engineering, especially at companies that are literally shaping [music] this wave like OpenAI or Anthropic, the people who are reviewing talent here are looking for builders who are already in motion. Not

just people who say that they're interested. So you don't need a perfect

interested. So you don't need a perfect portfolio, you just need a visible one.

And the third part of this is that you have to stop over-filtering what [music] you're allowed to build. People get

stuck because they keep asking, "Is this idea even good enough for my resume or for my portfolio?" Or they might ask, "Am I skilled enough or should I wait until I know more?" But the people who are actually improving are just using

[music] everything available to them and just building it anyway. So using AI, libraries, templates, [music] random GitHub repos, documentation, they're trying to brute-force learning through building. Even if it feels not good

building. Even if it feels not good enough or maybe it feels too good and it feels ambitious or if it feels messy or something that one person shouldn't be able to build.

[music] That's exactly the point. Because the

fastest way to become that kind of programmer, the one who just builds things and makes it work, [music] is to stop negotiating with yourself every time that you get an idea. You build it, ship it, show it, iterate and slowly your identity starts to catch up with

your behavior. And the one thing under

your behavior. And the one thing under all of that, the thing that lets you keep up with your own ambition, is to never stop learning. Which is why I genuinely got excited when I saw that Brilliant today sponsor just dropped something game-changing. This is the new

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So thank you once again to Brilliant for sponsoring this video and thank you to everyone for watching. I'm really trying to up the levels, like editing better, uploading more, and all of that stuff.

So subscribe, like, comment, share, everything. Thank you.

everything. Thank you.