The AI-Augmented Developer

Are you ready for the "Great Decoupling"?

For the last fifteen years, a developer's value was measured by their ability to write syntax. If you knew the language, you had a job. If you managed a large team of people writing that language, you had a career.

That world is ending.

With the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs), the act of typing code is being decoupled from the act of solving problems. The "Warehouse Model"—hiring armies of developers to churn out boilerplate—is being replaced by small, hyper-efficient teams of AI-Augmented Developers.

This shift is terrifying. It creates a "Junior Gap" where new developers can't find a foothold, and a "Manager Squeeze" where leaders lose their empires.

This book is your survival guide.

The AI-Augmented Developer is not a book of theoretical futurism. It is a practical, hands-on manual written by a veteran engineering leader who is actively using these strategies to save his own career.

Inside, you will learn:

• The Mindset Shift: How to stop panicking and start treating AI as the ultimate abstraction layer. Move from being a "Code Writer" to a "Solution Orchestrator."
• The Verification Loop: Why "reading code" is now more important than "writing code," and how to audit AI-generated solutions for subtle, hallucinated bugs.
• The New Hard Skills: Context Engineering as System Architecture, LLM Internals for Engineers, and building "Micro-Agents" to automate your grunt work.
• The Human Moat: The skills AI cannot replicate—Complexity Management, User Empathy, and the "Requirements Translation" that turns vague business goals into rigid technical specs.

A "Living Book" Created via the Cyborg Method

This book walks the walk. It was not written in isolation; it was produced using the Cyborg Method.

• The Author (Brenn Hill) acted as the Architect, defining the concepts, anecdotes, and strategy.
• The AI acted as the Staff Writer, expanding notes and challenging logic.
• The Human acted as the Auditor, verifying every sentence for truth and tone.

Because the field of AI changes weekly, this is a Living Book. Buying it on Leanpub grants you access to continuous updates as new models (GPT-5, Claude, etc.) are released and new patterns are discovered.

The wave is coming. You can drown, or you can learn to ride it.