From Geek to Star #13 - Hard-Skills 2.0 – Did your AI habits stick?

If you missed the previous episodes, you can access them online here.

👋 Jedi Padawans & Masters,

When I first talked about Hard-Skills in Newsletter #8, I mentioned that mere “ChatGPT-as-Stack-Overflow” usage wasn’t enough. Instead, I suggested to start practicing three concrete habits:

These are just a few ideas among many others that you can find, and doing that is positive. But coming back on this subject of “hard skills", I think the approach should be different whether you are junior, intermediate or senior in your discipline (whether it is software development, data engineering, devops, cybersecurity engineering…).

🧭 Tailoring Your Approach by Level

Junior / Jedi Padawan

The dark side of “easy copy/paste” from GenAI  is tempting, especially under delivery pressure. But real learning comes from struggle and iteration, that's how our brain works. Otherwise as a person you won't develop your hard skills and companies will always consider you as a junior - if they continue to hire you. 

Your mission:

• Code first, then consult AI. Write the function yourself, the test case, the terraform for your infrastructure, etc… then ask the AI to give you cues as an expert mentor on what you should consider to improve your work, not modify your work directly. That will force you to use your brain and therefore capture the learning in your long term memory.

• Build your “sensei squad.” Pair informally once a week with a more senior engineer passionate about tech: show your code, solicit feedback, iterate. Having human to human interactions is a stong enabler of lasting learning, more than just reading generated text.

• AI tip: Use prompts like “Explain this code in simple terms” or “Review these edge cases I've thought about and give me some cues if I missed something”

Intermediate / Jedi Knight

You can solve problems, but it’s time to deepen your mastery and speed.

Your mission:

• Project sprints. Pick a small feature or refactor every two weeks. Prototype solo, then ask the AI to stress-test or propose scaling improvements.

• Prompt refinement. Evolve your prompt library into a mini-framework: e.g., “When I write a REST API, always include input validation and logging.”

• AI tip: “Review this mini-project’s architecture and highlight potential reliability or security risk I may have not listed here.”

Senior / Jedi Master

You own architecture and design, now lead with AI as your co-pilot.

Your mission:

• System doctrines. Draft high-level design docs, invite the AI to play “devil’s advocate,” then refine your decisions, together with a human peer to have both AI and human interactions.

• Team enablement. Teach one AI habit in each sprint demo; share best prompts and patterns in your team wiki.

• AI tip: “Simulate failure modes for this distributed system and propose mitigation strategies.”

🚀 Free Yourself from “B*S” Meetings

Too many meetings are of little value for you and steal your deep-work time. Insidiously, it may also push you toward “brainless” AI copy/paste as you may have less time but same deadlines. Protect your focused hours by:

1. Declining non-essential invites where your contribution is low or where you won't learn anything relevant (remember, town halls ARE relevant to capture how the business is doing, understand priorities…) with a short, polite note:  “Thanks for including me! I’ll review the notes and follow up if needed.”

2. Blocking some “focus time” on your calendar as a recurring unavailable slot - still allowing for time for useful meetings and social skills building.

3. Setting expectations with your manager and peers so they know when you’re in “flow mode.”

🙏 I’d Love to Hear From You

What is the most important action you see as being impactul to hone your hard skills?

Reply to this email, I read every note.

And don’t forget: follow me on LinkedIn for more reflections and “behind-the-scenes” thinking between newsletters. Don't hesitate to engage discussions there in the comments to also start showing and sharing your thoughts publicly. 

P.S. Referral Pilot 🚀

Forward this email to one engineer friend you appreciate and who may benefit from this as part of our “sharing is caring” mindset! Put a nice forward word, a good opportunity to connect or re-connect. 

✨ May the Shift be with you!

From Geek to Star by Khang | The Way Forward