Code like a surgeon
October 27, 2025
A lot of people say AI will make us all “managers” or “editors”…but I think this is a dangerously incomplete view!Personally, I’m trying to code like a surgeon.A surgeon isn’t a manager, they do the actual work! But their skills and time are highly leveraged with a support team that handles prep, secondary tasks, admin. The surgeon focuses on the important stuff they are uniquely good at.
Source: Code like a surgeon
We collect quite a few reflections like these from software engineers about how they work with large language models and how they think about that work.
I think this analogy of a surgeon is actually very interesting and possibly quite helpful. Surgery is increasingly automated and supported. A surgeon is surrounded by experts with anaesthetics, surgical nursing teams, very often using robotic arms and devices and using magnifying technology rather than their unaided eye. And yet it’s ultimately the knowledge and specific skill of the surgeon that leads to successful outcomes.
