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From StaffEng by David Noël-Romas (@davidnoelromas) and Alex Kessinger (@voidfiles)

January 20, 2026 · 8 min

About this episode

The hosts discuss the challenges engineers face in learning new AI coding tools that promise significant productivity boosts.

After 3 years, we’re coming out of retirement, because something fundamental broke open in the last few months—something that changes everything about how we work. We Don’t Know How to Learn This Yet AI coding tools promise a 10X—maybe 100X—productivity boost. But here’s what we’re seeing: most engineers don’t know how to learn these tools. The old playbook—read the docs, practice, master—doesn’t work when the tools are fundamentally stochastic and changing weekly. Even worse, there’s nowhere...

People in this episode

Hosts: David Noël-Romas, Alex Kessinger

Topics covered

  • AI coding tools
  • productivity
  • learning
  • engineering
  • technology

Keywords

  • AI
  • coding tools
  • productivity boost
  • learning
  • engineering

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: AI coding tools

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