Original: Lenny Rachitsky · 02/04/2026
Summary
Simon Willison discusses the evolution of AI coding agents, the risks for mid-career engineers, and the future of automation in software development.Key Insights
“November 2025 was the inflection point when AI coding agents crossed from mostly works to actually works.” — Discussing the timeline of AI development.
“Mid-career engineers (not juniors) are most at risk right now.” — Highlighting the impact of AI on job security.
“Prompt injection is an unsolved security problem.” — Addressing the challenges in AI security.
Topics
Full Article
Simon Willison is a prolific independent software developer, a blogger, and one of the most visible and trusted voices on the impact AI is having on builders. He co-created Django, the web framework that powers Instagram, Pinterest, and tens of thousands of other websites. He coined the term prompt injection, popularized the terms AI slop and agentic engineering, and has built over 100 open source projects, including Datasette, a data analysis tool used by investigative journalists worldwide. What makes Simon unique is that hes made the leap from traditional software engineering to AI-native development more fully and visibly than almost anyoneand hes been documenting everything he learns in real time on his blog, SimonWillison.net.Listen on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple PodcastsIn our in-depth conversation, Simon shares:Why November 2025 was the inflection point when AI coding agents crossed from mostly works to actually worksHow Simon writes 95% of his code from his phone now and why hes mentally exhausted by 11 a.m.Why mid-career engineers (not juniors) are most at risk right nowThe three agentic engineering patterns Simon uses daily (red/green TDD, templates, hoarding)The next leap: the dark factory pattern where nobody writes or reviews code and AI does its own QAWhy prompt injection is an unsolved security problem and the lethal trifecta that will likely lead to an AI Challenger disasterWhy the pelican riding a bicycle became the unofficial benchmark for AI model qualityBrought to you by:WorkOSModern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUsVantaautomate compliance, manage risk, and accelerate trust with AIWhere to find Simon Willison: X: https://x.com/simonw LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonwillison Website: https://simonwillison.net Agentic Engineering Patterns: https://simonwillison.net/guides/agentic-engineering-patternsReferenced: It genuinely feels to me like GPT-5.2 and Opus 4.5 in November represent an inflection point: https://x.com/simonw/status/2007904766756880848 Claude Code: https://code.claude.com Codex: https://chatgpt.com/codex Head of Claude Code: What happens after coding is solved | Boris Cherny: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/head-of-claude-code-what-happens Theres a new kind of coding I call vibe coding: https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383 Firefox: https://www.firefox.com Naming expert shares the process behind creating billion-dollar brand names like Azure, Vercel, Windsurf, Sonos, Blackberry, and Impossible Burger | David Placek (Lexicon Branding): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/naming-expert-david-placek Windsurf: https://windsurf.com Thoughtworks: https://www.thoughtworks.com Cloudflare: https://www.cloudflare.com Shopify: https://www.shopify.com Jensen Huang: Nvidias Future, Physical AI, Rise of the Agent, Inference Explosion, AI PR Crisis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwW8GKwHB3I Inside Linear: Building with taste, craft, and focus | Karri Saarinen (co-founder, designer, CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-linear-building-with-taste Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com Dario Amodei on X: https://x.com/DarioAmodei Lennys post on the job market in tech: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/state-of-the-product-job-market-in-ee9 Claude app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/claude-by-anthropic/id6473753684 Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/app Import and export your memory from Claude: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12123587-import-and-export-your-memory-from-claude Wispr Flow: https://wisprflow.ai The last six months in LLMs, illustrated by pelicans on bicycles: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/6/six-months-in-llms Gemini 3.1 Pro: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/19/gemini-31-pro Redis: https://redis.io Node.js: https://nodejs.org Simons tools repository: https://github.com/simonw/tools Simons research repository: https://github.com/simonw/research Tesseract: https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract TDD: https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TestDrivenDevelopment.html Red/green TDD: https://simonwillison.net/guides/agentic-engineering-patterns/red-green-tdd The lethal trifecta for AI agents: private data, untrusted content, and external communication: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/16/the-lethal-trifecta Prompt injection: https://simonwillison.net/series/prompt-injection The coming AI security crisis (and what to do about it) | Sander Schulhoff: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-coming-ai-security-crisis AI prompt engineering in 2025: What works and what doesnt | Sander Schulhoff (Learn Prompting, HackAPrompt): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/ai-prompt-engineering-in-2025-sander-schulhoff The Challenger Disaster: Normalisation of Deviance: https://psychsafety.com/normalisation-of-deviance Thanksgiving Day ChartBehind The Net: https://www.blackswanreport.com/blog/2009/11/thanksgiving-day%C2%A0chart-behind-the-net CaMeL offers a promising new direction for mitigating prompt injection attacks: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Apr/11/camel OpenClaw: https://openclaw.ai Introducing ai.comYour Private, Personal AI Agent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7I-D4YXbzg Tamagotchi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamagotchi NanoClaw: https://nanoclaw.dev Spider-Man 2: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0316654 Alfred Molina: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Molina AI for Data Journalism: demonstrating what we can do with this stuff right now: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Apr/17/ai-for-data-journalism Kkp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C4%81k%C4%81p%C5%8D Kkp Cam: Rakiura the kkp2026 nest: https://www.youtube.com/live/BfGL7A2YgUYProduction and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.My biggest takeaways from this conversation: Read moreRelated Articles
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Originally published at https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/an-ai-state-of-the-union.