The Multiplier

I’ve been interviewing junior engineers for longer than I’d like to admit, and somewhere in the last two years something shifted.

The demos got better. Genuinely impressive, actually. Clean UI, working features, deployed—sometimes before I’ve even finished my coffee. Very 10x engineer-ish.

But then I ask the question I always ask: “Walk me through what happens when this breaks.”

And that’s where it gets interesting. Not because they panic—they’re usually pretty calm about it. But because the honest answer, more often than not, is: they don’t know. Not because they’re lazy or careless. Because the AI fixed it before they had the chance to find out.

Every error they didn’t have to read. Every stack trace they didn’t have to follow. Every “why is this behaving like this at 2am” moment that got resolved by a better prompt instead of a better mental model. That’s not just saved time. That’s the exact experience where engineers actually become engineers—and they skipped it.

Here’s the uncomfortable math: AI is a multiplier. Great engineers become exceptional. Shaky foundations just get taller, faster.

0 times 100 is still 0.