Writing
A hardware product I built alone in twenty days, and what it taught me about where AI assistance helps, where it does nothing, and where it will confidently walk you off a cliff.
I expected the help to land in the code. It didn't. It landed in the disciplines I already owned and hadn't used in years — which means the size of the effect depends on something about the engineer that nobody is measuring.
Five pieces, each a specific instance from the build. Two are about the multiplier; three are about its limits. That ratio is the honest proportion, not a rhetorical hedge.
A simulated hardware layer, and the week the textbook-correct choice finally became the fast one.
A dead clock chip, and the difference between tracing a failure and suspecting one.
An afternoon spent searching the wrong domain, and the thing that pulled me out of it.
Bench debugging when the reference layer is instant. Nobody automates the meter.
The unglamorous majority of the work, and the part that compressed the most.