From Burnout to Builder: How AI Tools Changed My Relationship with Code

Source: Dev.to

Background

Six months ago I was dreading opening my IDE. Every project felt like climbing a mountain in lead boots, and the joy was gone. I work as a data engineer at a healthcare ad‑tech company, managing complex pipelines and infrastructure. I’ve always had side‑project ideas, but the gap between a “cool idea” and actually building it felt insurmountable. Learning new frameworks, debugging for hours, fighting with CSS—it all felt like work on top of work.

Trying AI Tools

I was skeptical of AI coding tools, feeling they were a form of cheating. I thought I should be able to build things “the right way,” learning every framework deeply and understanding every line of code I wrote. Burnout, however, doesn’t care about principles.

I decided to give Cursor IDE and Claude a try. I picked a simple idea—a collection of developer tools—and started building without a grand plan or trying to learn React from scratch first.

Results

The experiment worked remarkably well.

• I built Toolpod.dev, a suite of 48 browser‑based developer tools (JSON formatter, regex tester, Base64 encoder, etc.) plus an API directory.
• The site features a full responsive design and is deployed on Firebase.
• What would have taken months of grinding through tutorials and Stack Overflow was completed in a few weeks.

How I Used AI

1. Architect the structure and make product decisions.
2. Review and modify AI‑generated code.
3. Debug when things break (they do).
4. Optimize and refactor to make the code usable.

The AI handled the tedious parts: boilerplate, syntax look‑ups, converting designs to code, and repetitive patterns. The speed boost was obvious, but the code quality remained solid.

Personal Impact

• The “fraud” feeling faded once I realized I’d always used tools—frameworks, libraries, Stack Overflow, Git, VS Code extensions—to be more productive. AI is just another, more powerful tool.
• I learned faster because I could ask “why did you do it this way?” and receive contextual explanations.
• Starting new projects no longer feels daunting; the activation energy for side projects is dramatically lower.
• The joy of building returned, and I’m now creating many things again.

Lessons Learned

• AI isn’t magic; you still need to understand what you’re building.
• Bad prompts produce bad code, and you remain responsible for what ships.
• Complex architecture still requires real expertise.
• For MVPs, side projects, or learning new tech, AI is a game‑changer.

Advice for Burned‑Out Developers

If you’re feeling burned out or have ideas you’ve been postponing:

1. Pick a small thing to build.
2. Use tools like Cursor or GitHub Copilot (both offer free trials).
3. Don’t overthink it—just start and see how it feels.

You might surprise yourself. For me, the shift was transformative: I went from dreading code to shipping projects again. The tools didn’t make me less of a developer; they made me a happier one—and that matters more than I realized.