I often wonder how people who think critically come up with the questions they ask.
Sometimes, when I read good books, I’m struck by how powerful the author’s questions are. It keeps reinforcing a belief I have: good questions are the backbone of innovation and critical thinking.
If you ask yourself the right questions, you probably get closer to the right answers.
We know that AI is becoming more capable every day. And as a dev, I got scared of that, at first.
I am pretty much convinced that in the near future, we won’t spend most of our time writing code. We will be prompting and AI will execute.
So what’s left for the junior/mid/senior dev?
To me, the answer is clear: thinking.
And it's a good thing! That means less dummy work and more clever work. That means more impact. That means software engineering being available to more companies. More solutions created to our problems.
AI is incredibly good at execution. But someone still needs to decide what to build and how to build it. That future role for us looks much more like an architect than a pure executor. Someone who understands systems, trade-offs, users, constraints, and priorities. Someone who can zoom out.
Being a developer in this world doesn’t mean knowing everything. It means knowing a lot about many things, having one or two areas of real depth, and being able to connect dots. It means creating the strategy and choosing the tactics, not just blindly executing a plan.
A lot of fear around AI is driven by the job market and by media narratives. Developers worry about being replaced, about becoming irrelevant, about not keeping up. Juniors and seniors probably feel this differently. Juniors may fear that they don’t yet have enough to offer. Seniors may fear being outpaced by younger, more AI-native developers who move faster and experiment more.
But what if we flip the perspective and think like someone hiring a developer?
As an hiring manager I care about productivity. I care whether someone knows how to use AI. But raw output alone isn’t enough. Vibe coding might look fast, but speed without judgment is risky.
What I really want to see is whether someone can think.
Can they learn from mistakes? Can they plan instead of jumping on the first solution? Can they compare tools and approaches? Can they ask the right questions to the right people? That’s what critical thinking looks like in practice.
Being extremely good at one language mostly proves you’re good at execution. But can you think about architecture as a whole? About stakeholders? About users? About what actually makes an experience good? Those are the questions that create leverage.
Personally, I’m not afraid of AI anymore. It’s helped me elevate my craft. With a few years of experience, I can now operate more like an architect than a pure implementer. I can support my team by asking better questions, by challenging decisions, and by slowing things down when clarity is missing.
I’ve also become more aware of how my own thinking works. I notice patterns. I notice when someone asks a particularly good question—in a meeting or in a book—and I try to understand where that question came from. I pay attention to how I reason, where I rush, and where I cut corners.
That awareness leaks into everyday life too. Recently, I noticed I was wasting too much time on my phone right after waking up. So I changed one small thing: I left my phone in another room. The next morning, I have time to read some pages of my book instead. It feels good. I start the day already proud of myself.
I’m convinced that in the AI era, the developers who stand out won’t just be the fastest coders. They’ll be the ones who think clearly, ask better questions, and make better decisions.
I’m curious what other developers think! How do you practice critical thinking? Do you feel it becoming more important as AI gets better?
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