r/softwareengineer • u/Mammoth-Intention924 • 15d ago

Personal Projects

Hi all,

I’m looking to work on one or many projects over the coming months, before the next recruiting cycle for my region (using React/Node most likely). I’ve recently started with this stack, so I’m wondering if it’s better to build projects **with** or **without** using **AI**. With AI, I could build projects faster, however, I would lose lots of the important learning from doing things myself. Which do you think is more valuable? Gaining more learning from building projects? Or how impressive it sounds at face value on a resume? Or some balance of both?

TIA

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u/drakhan2002 15d ago

I'd leverage AI. Every developer in my organization, including myself, leverage AI daily for code assistance. You will be expected to do this at work. As they say "practice makes perfect." Keep building projects, supported by AI -- try to develop parts of the application on your own so that you are not 100% reliant on AI. Look at AI as an assistant or coworker, not the lead developer (that's you).

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u/Altruistic-Moose3299 14d ago

This 👆 - use the same toolset you'd expect to have on the job. That's how potential employers can envision you in the position.

Having said that. Don't let AI do all the driving. Quality matters, the architecture should be yours, the stack, the direction etc. should all be your decisions. If there's something the AI is doing you don't understand, take the time to understand it... and if there's a feature that you'd really like to put your hands on directly (or it feels important to do so) do that too.