Level 0
Assisted
You're just getting started — and that's fine.
What's a level? How far you've shifted from writing code yourself to directing the AI that writes it — five bands, from hands-on-keyboard to running a fleet of agents. Most of us are mid-ladder, and climbing.
Where you are
You've got smarter autocomplete and inline suggestions switched on. The editor finishes your line, you glance at it, you hit tab. AI is faster typing, nothing more. Most days you'd barely notice if it was off. Your mental model is "AI saves me keystrokes."
What's keeping you here
Mostly that it's working well enough that you've never had a reason to push further. The suggestions are handy, they don't get in your way, and the whole thing feels like a small upgrade to the IDE rather than a new way to work. There's no pain forcing you up — which is exactly why so many capable engineers quietly stay right here.
Why it matters now
This rung is the one AI has already commoditised. Accepting a completion isn't really "using AI" in the sense that's reshaping the industry. It's the same job you did before, with less typing. The thing that's actually moving is where the value sits, and it's moving away from typing speed entirely. The gap between this and what's coming is bigger than it looks from here, and it's growing. (Steve Yegge, mapping his own eight levels of coder evolution, calls these the bottom rungs. And they're the first to go.)
What's different
"Finish my line" becomes "help me figure this out." You go from passively accepting suggestions to actively asking questions: describing a problem, weighing an approach, pasting an error and talking it through. The AI stops being a keyboard shortcut and starts being something you reason with.
The leadership shift
There isn't one yet. And that's worth saying plainly. Down here it's still entirely a personal habit, just you and your editor. But it helps to know where the road leads: every level above this one bends away from coding faster and toward directing work you don't personally do. The habit you're building now is the seed of that. Start noticing the moments you reach for the AI versus the moments you don't.
Your moves
- Open a chat alongside your editor and actually ask it something today — not a completion, a question about how to approach the problem.
- Next time you're stuck, describe the problem to the AI before you reach for a search engine. Practise putting the messy version of the question into words.
- Pick one small, low-risk task this week and let the model draft the first version, then you edit it — flip the order you're used to.
- Read Steve Yegge's eight levels once, so you can see the ladder you're standing at the bottom of.
"We use AI" is the new "we're agile." It means everything and nothing — the right question isn't are you using AI, it's how effectively.
Next rung
Augmented: you stop treating AI as autocomplete and start holding a real conversation with it. Chat in the editor, asking the model when you're stuck, working a problem out with it. You're still writing the code yourself, but now thinking alongside something, not just accepting its guesses.