How do you balance learning with using AI at work?
Hey everyone. I'm 18 years old and recently got a contractor job working mostly alone on a real project, with someone more experienced guiding me when needed.
Right now I'm using Codex inside VS Code quite a lot, Im a bit worried that it might be becoming a crutch for me.
I (actually the ai) can produce code pretty quickly now, but I spend hours afterward trying to actually understand what Codex generated. It optimizes things heavily, abstracts repeated logic into functions, restructures files, and sometimes I feel like I'm losing track of the bigger picture of the codebase.
So I'd really like to hear from more experienced developers:
Is modern software development becoming "waiting for coding agents to generate code", or are there still many moments where you manually implement things yourself by hand?
How deeply should I try to understand the code I'm working with? Is it important to obsess over every detail like syntax, architecture, patterns, abstractions, etc?
I genuinely want to improve and not just become someone who copies AI-generated code without understanding it.
Thanks to anyone who replies.