Moonlight AI - The next big thing

Juan G De Jesus Torres — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 09:24:16 +0000

This is the next big thing! I've been working on Moonlight AI for almost 6 months now and today I have big news. Automated Applications. That's right, Moonlight AI will have automated applications for the 2.0 version!

What is Moonlight AI?

Moonlight AI at first, was a project that was aimed to compete with Upwork. That definitely didn't work out even at the development phase so I had to pivot to another project. A month after the conception of the original version, I met a potential co-founder for a new initiative. Moonlight has been repurposed to be a capabilities mapping engine based on worker experience. We used a resume parser and a local LLM to map the capabiities based on skills and job experience alongside Github integration to use as proof of work. The project ultimately didn't work out, the potential cofounder was MIA so my only recourse was to rewrite Moonlight AI to be another thing, which ended up being a glorified job board which is how it works now.

The Development Process

Moonlight AI was vibe-coded in a night. Modifications were done the same way with different LLM models. LLMs today are what I call an automated entry-level developer since juniors is the wrong term because juniors at least have from 1-3 years of experience in the professional landscape and are more than just coding monkeys, where as entry-levels are just that, developers with 0 years of experience.

Today, Moonlight AI should be done the correct way: reading the code and writing it too. Why let an LLM to do my job as well as think for me? DO YOU WANT ME TO GET ALZHEIMER? BECAUSE THAT'S HOW YOU GET ALZHEIMER! Anyways, exercising the mind is very important, that's what make us humans. People today have an obsession with automating their lives completely and end up like the humans in WALL-E. End of rant.

The Future (Conclusion)

I don't know the future, but I envision Moonlight AI to be a tool to make unemployed people lives a little less unbearable. I know how frustrating is to use a job board, applying by hand for hours and hours when a machine, with enough data, can do that for you while you focus on your personal lives. Whether you are a parent, an spouse, a student or all of the above, you are also human and your lives should not be spent in front of a computer looking for jobs in this terrible market on late nights, you should be with your family or by yourself if you live alone, enjoying the best things in life while a machine do the boring chores for you.

Software engineering is not dead

Juan G De Jesus Torres — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 23:29:28 +0000

Lately, my LinkedIn feed has become an echo chamber of AI evangelists worshiping at the altar of the big 4: Dario, Sama, Nadella and Musk. The narrative they’re pushing is consistent: Programming is dead, and AI is the new architect.

This is what I'm actually seeing:

The Pay-to-Play Problem

Take xAI’s Grok or other gated models. There’s a growing trend of forcing developers into expensive subscriptions just to access mediocre code generation. As someone who values logic and brainpower over a massive API budget, this pay-to-play barrier feels like a tax on actual intelligence. I’d rather use my brain for free than pay for a tool that hallucinates my dependencies, even if it cost me more time.

"Vibe Coding" vs. Engineering

We are currently being lectured by people vibe coding glorified To-Do apps. They’re running these massive campaigns telling experienced engineers that we’ll be replaced by a prompt.

Ironic, the people loudest about the "end of coding" are often the ones who:

Can't debug a memory leak without a chatbot.
Pivot into PM roles where they manage lunch schedules rather than technical debt.
Have no skin in the game when it comes to long-term maintainability.

So in conclusion

AI is a tool, not a replacement for the fundamental understanding of how systems actually work. If you don't understand the project, you aren't coding at the speed of thought but rather you're just making mistakes faster.

The industry doesn't need more hype; it needs more people who actually care about the craft.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

DEV Community: Juan G De Jesus Torres