The Rise of the Mids (in 2026)

This almost feels like engineering in 2026 can be described as the rise of the mids. Mid-level engineers can suddenly afford to think longer and deeper with AI and, as a result, write really beautiful code.

The coding machines—the people who used to just crank out tickets—are mildly annoyed, because the mids are starting to snipe at their heels. And the lows, the juniors, are just lost. There’s so much new technology and so many new techniques that they now have to catch up on, and the gap between mids and lows is increasing.

Anyway, I hope you all take this with a bit of humor on a Saturday morning.