I'm scared

Back in 1901, a clerk in his forties named Frank Hornby invented a toy. It was an assembling kit based on mechanical engineering principles that included stuff like perforated metal strips, bolts and screws. I was lucky enough to be born almost 90 years later, when this toy was already being sold in Barcelona toy stores under the name of Meccano.

I always preferred assembling Meccano cars and trucks—or building weird Duplo constructions—over playing with action figures. Or at least that’s what my parents always say. Truth be told, I don’t remember much about my happy post-toddler years. But their story fits perfectly with how I turned out, so I believe them.

I’ve always been curious about how things operate or are built. But even more so, I’ve been curious about building and making them work by myself. It won’t come as a surprise then, that it meant the world to me when I finally got my own personal computer with access to the internet. Back when no social media existed and people just gathered around forums.

I was around 12 or 13 when I stumbled upon a tool called RPG Maker 2003, it was a dream come true for any Final Fantasy nerd like I was at the time (still am). RPG Maker was my first contact with programming. I didn’t write a single line of code, but I started thinking in logical terms: fire this dialog when I step onto this tile; if the treasure chest is already open, display it as such and don’t allow looting it again.

I then pursued other interests during my teenage years—like writing, music, and playing World of Warcraft more than I should—until I found myself at uni, and programming came back into my life.

We had some C++ lectures, and they were the only ones where I received top marks. I remember having a blast writing long algorithms in pen and paper (yes, you read that right) in the exams. And so my builder spark was ignited again.

In 2012, my last year at uni, I was very lucky to find an internship gig at Codegram, a small Ruby on Rails shop. There I learned the foundations of my web development career, starting with the TDD methodology and what an MVC framework is.

I remember the excitement of learning how to assemble pieces of code to create applications. The dopamine rush of seeing the tests going green after the implementation and then checking the UI actually working. I was building again.

It’s 2026 now. I’ve been doing this for almost 15 years. I’ve been through a diverse number of companies and learned even more technologies. I’ve been the junior, the lead and the manager. I’ve shaped my opinions on what I consider the right and the wrong way to operate and get shit done.

And as much as things have been changing over the years, we’re living through the biggest shift I’ve experienced in my professional career.

Two years ago, software engineering was getting hands-on. We’d get a feature request and figure out how to solve it. We’d tinker, move code around, refactor and test. That was the fun part.

In 2026, I open Claude Code and describe a feature I want to build. It plans while I prompt another idea in parallel. And another. Then I review the first one and it starts implementing. Same for the rest. I ask for more changes and eventually merge.

It works.

I didn’t write any of it.

I’m not building anymore, I’m directing.

And I’m scared.

Not to lose my job. I’ve used these tools enough to understand how capable of producing a big pile of crap they are without the proper guidance. And someone still needs to have the ideas and prompt them. I’m scared of something else.

I’m scared of losing the joy of building stuff.

I’m scared of not being the kid who had fun building Meccanos anymore, but rather an observer of a tool that builds them for me.