---
title: "The New Colleagues"
seo_title: "The New Colleagues: Working with AI Coding Assistants — Dan Podina"
description: "A software architect reflects on working with AI coding assistants: faster learning, pressure-testing designs, and a different kind of fatigue."
url: https://danpodina.com/log/new-colleagues/
markdown: https://danpodina.com/log/new-colleagues/index.md
type: log
date: 2026-03-05
lastmod: 2026-09-10
---

# The New Colleagues

> A software architect reflects on working with AI coding assistants: faster learning, pressure-testing designs, and a different kind of fatigue.

For twenty years, the hard part of this job was people. Not the code — the communication. Sitting in meetings, reading between the lines, figuring out what someone actually needs versus what they're asking for. That takes a specific kind of energy, and after enough of it, you're done for the day.

Now there's a new presence in the room. Not a person, but not a tool either — something in between. Claude, Gemini, Codex. Pick your flavor. They show up ready, they don't need context repeated, and they're sharp. Genuinely sharp.

Here's what nobody warned me about: working with something that's always on, always precise, always ready for more — that's its own kind of exhausting. It's not the same fatigue as a difficult stakeholder or a drawn-out code review. It's more like playing chess with someone who never gets tired. You have to stay sharp just to keep up with what's being offered to you.

But there's a trade. And the trade is worth it.

I'm learning faster than I have in years. Not in the way you learn from a course or a book, where the information flows one way. This is conversational. You throw an idea out, it comes back refined. You ask a dumb question, you get a real answer without the social cost. You can pressure-test an architecture in minutes instead of days.

Twenty years in, I thought the rate of learning would only slow down. The opposite is happening.

The fatigue is real. But so is the momentum.


Read the log: https://danpodina.com/log/ | Contact card: https://danpodina.com/card/ | What I do now: https://systemtrails.com/