AI Isn’t Replacing Curious Developers

AI isn’t just changing how we write code. It’s changing what it even means to build software.In this episode of the Data Engineering Central Podcast, I sit down with Neil Roberts — a developer who’s been through every major wave of the web, from BASIC on an Atari to modern TypeScript, and now deep into LLMs and agentic workflows.This is not another surface-level “AI will change everything” conversation. We get into what is actually happening right now, where it works, where it completely breaks, and what developers are getting wrong.* We talk about why front-end and UX matter more than ever in an AI world, why most people misunderstand agents, and what real day-to-day workflows with LLMs actually look like. * There’s also a hard look at who benefits from AI, who falls behind, and whether we are quietly building fragile systems that we don’t fully understand.If you’re a developer trying to figure out where this is all going, this is one of those conversations worth paying attention to.Data Engineering Central is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Expect to learn:* Why AI is as much a UX problem as it is a backend problem* What “agents” actually mean in practice, not in demos* Where LLM workflows are useful today and where they fail hard* Whether junior developers should be worried or excited* How building apps changes when AI is part of the system* What developers should actually be doing right now to stay relevantNeil also has a podcast, The Skill Tree, on AI and agentic-specific topics.We also get into a bigger question most people are avoiding:* Are we heading toward AI-assisted coding… or AI-orchestrated systems where developers become supervisors?* And maybe more importantly… which side of that shift do you want to be on?Thanks for reading Data Engineering Central! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dataengineeringcentral.substack.com/subscribe