How one researcher shifted from autocomplete to coding agents
In a first-person account, the author says they moved from engineering on Microsoft’s Windows AI team to research engineering at Salesforce AI Research, with more time spent supporting scientists and rapid prototyping. They now report managing about five to six Claude Code, OpenCode, Codex, or Pi agents for coding, research, writing, and creative work, while drafting a personal AI policy to guide daily use.
The account offers a concrete practitioner view of agentic coding adoption, including agents creating pull requests and running tests, while also noting that human experts remain more reliable for some research tasks.
Wow, things have changed.
Last October, I took stock of how I was using AI — specifically the cool stuff like LLMs that we call 'AI’. I’m so glad I did. Things are very, very different 12 months later.
Background
I still believe I use AI fairly typically, but I’ve had a notable change in background. Last October, I was an engineer on Microsoft’s Windows AI team. I am now a research engineer at Salesforce AI Research. I spend more time supporting scientists & building rapid prototypes, rather than working with a large team of engineers. I spend about ~$3,000/month in tokens.
#Microsoft#Windows AI#Salesforce AI Research#Claude#Claude Code#OpenCode#Codex#Pi#GitHub Copilot#Gemini#GPT-4o