I'm on the same path as you are it seems. I used to be able to explain every single variable name in a PR. I took a lot of pride in the structure of the code and the tests I wrote had strategy and tactics.

I still wrote bugs. I'd bet that my bugs/LoC has remained static if not decreased with AI usage.

What I do see is more bugs, because the LoC denominator has increased.

What I align myself towards is that becoming senior was never about knowing the entire standard library, it was about knowing when to use the standard library. I spent a decade building Taste by butting my head into walls. This new AI thing just requires more Taste. When to point Claude towards a bug report and tell it to auto-merge a PR and when to walk through code-gen function by function.

> as ideas worth listening to, on any topic.

Shoe Button Complex as coined by Buffet and Munger. I see this all the time from even mildly successful people. Suddenly the Early Bitcoin Adopter is now a Macro Economist and a Relationship Guru.