Small steps with AI

As a junior developer, I wanted to rewrite everything. Big commits, massive refactors, complete overhauls. It felt productive.

It wasn’t.

Senior developers know better. Small commits. Testable changes. Break it down further.

As a CTO, I coach the same thing. What’s the smallest thing we can release? Can we make a PoC first? How do we break this down?

Now I’m watching people learn this same lesson with AI.

AI wants to write your entire blog post, refactor your whole function, solve your complete problem. Just like junior me, it feels productive.

It isn’t.

The people who get the most out of AI are treating it like code. Small changes they can verify. Iterative improvements they can stand behind.

They’re learning in months what took me years: the more powerful your tool, the more restraint you need to use it well.

Turns out incremental thinking isn’t just good engineering. It’s good everything.