My Experience with GitHub Copilot

I've been using GitHub Copilot for a while now. My honest take: it makes me a better engineer.

What it is

For those unfamiliar: GitHub Copilot is an AI pair programmer. It sits in your editor and suggests code as you type. Think of it as autocomplete on steroids.

Why I started using it

Simple. It writes boilerplate so I don't have to. My job shifts from typing code to evaluating whether the suggestion is correct. That's a better use of my time.

What surprised me

It's shockingly good at the boring stuff. Test scaffolding. Repetitive patterns. Utility functions. The code I'd write on autopilot anyway -- Copilot handles it faster.

But here's the real insight: AI isn't replacing engineers. It's replacing the mechanical parts of engineering. The parts that were already commoditized.

What this means for engineers

The bar is moving up. If a button that links to another page was a task ten years ago, today it's a button that renders across viewports, tracks analytics events, supports accessibility, and navigates with client-side routing.

Features are more complex than ever. The tools we have are more powerful than ever. Engineers who embrace that -- who use AI to handle the routine and focus their energy on architecture, design, and user experience -- will thrive.

Where this is going

AI-assisted coding is just the beginning. AI code review. AI-generated tests. AI that catches performance issues function by function.

The engineers who adopt these tools early will build faster and deliver higher quality software. The ones who resist will fall behind.

Adapt. Use the tools. Stay sharp.