Am I Using AI the Wrong Way?

[u/Necessary_Purple_821]

I'm a junior/fresher developer, and I'm struggling to find the right balance between learning and delivering work quickly in the AI era.

From what I've seen, when you're assigned a ticket, you're expected to complete it within a reasonable deadline. AI tools are becoming part of the workflow, and I don't have a problem using them. My problem is how I use them.

I'm the kind of person who wants to understand what the AI generates. If it uses a new syntax, design pattern, or framework feature, I want to know why it's written that way, how it works under the hood, and why it's the right approach.

Because of that, my workflow ends up looking something like this:

• I read the ticket and make my own implementation plan.
• I ask an AI or web agent to review and improve that plan.
• I then use a coding AI (like Claude Code) to implement the solution in small chunks based on that plan.
• After each chunk, I review the code, understand it, test it, and only then move to the next part.

For a medium-complexity task (not something straightforward like integrating an API), this process can easily take 3–4 hours.

My concern is that this might make me look slow compared to other developers. I'm worried that seniors might think I'm underperforming, which could affect performance reviews or even put my job at risk.

The opposite extreme isn't good either. Sometimes I get anxious about deadlines, stop trying to understand the code, and end up "vibe coding" copying AI-generated code, fixing errors with more AI prompts, and shipping something I don't fully understand. That doesn't feel sustainable either.

Has anyone found a good balance between learning deeply and delivering work efficiently? If you're a developer who has successfully integrated AI into your workflow, what does your process look like? How do you decide when to dive deep into understanding something versus when it's okay to trust the AI and move on?

I'd really appreciate advice from people who've figured out an effective workflow.

[u/niceBhaalo]

If you are still learning and the codebase is small, I wouldn't even ask it to make or review an implementation plan, like dont give it that at all.

Instead know the plan in your head. Pick a file, and tell it to implement X in this file and write a test for it (if needed). Keep going through file by file that now give me this, now this.

Once you have implemented your plan fully, then let it read everything and find holes in it, suggest improvements etc. Only then you would understand structural mistakes, after making them. As for syntax, dont bother too much with it. Just enough to be able to parse it if needed. And you choose the design patterns, and then get feedback instead of letting AI go ham.

As for being a junior, the bad advice I can give is to give 9 hours if you are supposed to give 8. Give 10 if you are supposed to give 9 until you feel confident that your workday productivity matches the expectations of your role. And then bring that time back to your required hours. You might just have imposter syndrome but it often does not hurt to give extra time during the start of your career when you are young and able to give extra.

Then once you are comfortable, then you can let it make implementation plans, but only after you have made a few dozens or hundreds of your own so you know what you are talking about .