Beyond the Stack with Lucas Longacre & Viktor Williamson
- May 4
- 35 min read
What does it actually mean to be “full stack” in a world where AI is starting to write the code for you?
In this episode of Signal & Noise, Lucas Longacre sits down with Viktor Williamson for a deep, practitioner-led conversation on the evolution of software engineering—from fundamentals to the fast-emerging agentic future.
This marks Lucas’s second long-form appearance on S&N and builds on his work as an Executive Voices contributor, bringing a product-led perspective to a rapidly shifting technical landscape.
Together, Lucas and Vik break down:
What “full stack” actually means—and why it’s becoming more critical than ever
How modern frameworks like Next.js are reshaping development paradigms
Why performance, flexibility, and cross-functional thinking are redefining engineering roles
The real impact of AI and agentic coding on how software gets built
Why engineers are shifting from writing code → reviewing, guiding, and orchestrating it
The growing importance of accessibility, security, and human-centered design in modern systems
But this isn’t just a technical conversation—it’s a philosophical one.
As AI accelerates development, the question isn’t whether engineers will be replaced. It’s whether they can evolve fast enough to stay relevant.
“We’re not doing less work. We’re being asked to do more—with higher expectations and faster timelines.”
From personal projects and “disposable apps” to the future of software as hyper-personalized infrastructure, this episode explores where the craft of engineering is headed—and what it means to stay human in the loop.
Full stack as a mindset, not just a skillset
Agentic coding and the rise of AI-assisted development
From builders to orchestrators: the new role of engineers
Personal software, micro-apps, and the death of bloated platforms
Accessibility and security as non-negotiables
Human judgment in an automated world
Viktor Williamson is a full stack engineer, educator, and mentor with a passion for human-centered development. With roots in front-end engineering and deep experience across the stack, Vik brings a rare combination of technical depth, communication skill, and real-world perspective on how engineers learn, build, and evolve.
Read the full transcript below:
Lucas Longacre (00:05.614)
All right, well, welcome to Signal and Noise. I'm here with Vic Williamson. He's a full stack engineer. How you doing, Vic?
Vik (00:15.357)
I'm doing great. How are you doing, Lucas?
Lucas Longacre (00:17.452)
I'm all right. mean, I'm excited to have this conversation because my role as head of product at enlightened, I don't do nearly as much engineering or coding as I was hoping. I should have known better stepping into this kind of role, but I met Vic because you were one of the professors when I was getting my certificate in full stack and my entire
you know, reason for taking that class was because I thought it would make me better at being a product manager, being an executive. If you know how to build things and all the different pieces that go into it, front end, backend databases, you know, basics of coding. And I feel like my skill level is junior engineer still. I never progressed further than that. But it does make me better at my job and communicating with engineers. But so I figured you'd be a great person to have on because
Honestly, you were one of the professors that were the standouts that you not only were really good as a teacher, which is, know, some of the most talented people in their industries. Yeah. Are terrible teachers. You know what I mean? Like it's, it's a whole other skillset being able to be a, you know, an instructor, but then also, um, you were, you're a great communicator. So I figured, Oh, I'll get Vic on to talk about this topic, about full stack engineering, because I do feel like this entire industry is changing and especially.
The full stack engineer, feel like my prediction is more in demand and we can get into my reasons why moving forward. But before we do, why don't we just give your origin story, your introduction, Vic, how did you get into computer science, coding, full stack engineering?
Vik (01:56.869)
Yeah, really, I started coding way back when MySpace was a thing and you could customize your homepage and, you know, work with the HTML and CSS. So I guess I had a really, a really early introduction to web development.
as a type of programming. And that would be part of why my focus and roots started out in front-end engineering, because I was initially exposed to HTML and CSS, the stuff to design my little social media page. starting out and going through school when I took computer science courses, they were also in HTML, CSS. So starting out in my career, coming out of college, I took a lot of front-end engineering roles because I was
exposed to the graphics of everything to make the page. So I feel like that's where my passion was like seeded and started to take root from.
Lucas Longacre (02:54.572)
And did you go to school for coding at that point or you just kind of started dabbling with, you know, my space and then you like going down the rabbit hole, learning stuff online. yeah. What was your journey there?
Vik (03:04.113)
Yes.
Yeah, that was my favorite part, I guess. I'm really just a nerd at heart. So I was fiddling around with code and figuring out, hey, I can do more than my space pages. I can make websites. Whoa. And then come senior year of high school, my school was one of the first ones in the district to get AP computer science. And I was like, great. It's programming. And I already do this stuff. Let me go take this class. And my professor, my teacher, she was like, hey, are you thinking about studying this when you go to college? Like, here's some of the salaries. Like, these are real.
numbers and she shows me on a website how much software engineers are making and what developers I was like what I could get paid that much for this I'm just dorking around doing it for free making my friends my space pages wait a minute so that's what I really like down right and I decided to study it in college went
Lucas Longacre (03:49.612)
Yeah, it's a career that pays well,
Vik (03:57.352)
couple of years at Georgia Southern University in South Georgia and then I transferred to Kennesaw State because they merged with Southern Polytechnic which is one of the most prestigious technical colleges or technology schools in the south next to like Georgia Tech. So I got a really good foundation and background in education.
with computer science, I guess from early on teaching myself self-taught, but then also starting to follow the structured path with a major and then a minor in psychology with a focus in human computer interaction.
Lucas Longacre (04:30.76)
Interesting. Okay. I see some of the parallels. Like, you my background coming from film and television and storytelling, I think has been a huge benefit in transitioning to this career. I do feel like most people who work in this industry should have some humanities under their belt. It'll just make them better at their jobs. But anyway, personal preference. So before we go too deep into it, can you tell me a little bit about like, is full staff?
Vik (04:49.169)
Yes. Yes.
Lucas Longacre (04:57.992)
the term because we're going to keep using it. if people maybe who aren't so embedded in the industry, what does that mean?
Vik (05:04.027)
Yeah, okay. One way that I like to describe it really, people think of the front end of an application being like the front of house. Think like a restaurant, who you're interacting with. Waitresses, the hosts, that's what you're seeing. So it's like the graphics of an application. What people actually interact with, what you're clicking on, what you're typing into when you type into a search bar.
the backend of an application being where all of the logic, the databases, the matrix code that drips down from the sky, all of that stuff, that's where that lives on the backend. So when you think of the backend, would also say like system logic and business logic. When you think full stack, you're thinking.
end-to-end the entire application, the graphics of it and everything that the user sees and then the back end of it as well. All of the data processing and data storage and all of those components of the system. You're getting like the end-to-end view, high level view of an entire system with full stack engineering.
Lucas Longacre (06:09.293)
And then to continue that metaphor, have the APIs. Those are like the door dashers that run out to get, up other stuff from other restaurants.
Vik (06:15.057)
Right. Yeah, exactly. know, back in back of house, those are the chefs back there, line cook. Shout out to all my people that work culinary. We're thinking of you too. Yeah, yeah.
Lucas Longacre (06:23.019)
I love the, I love the using a restaurant as a metaphor for it. It's perfect. yeah. So honestly, the full stack thing to me was most interesting. It's why I got a certificate in it was because of the, you know, understanding all sides of it, you know, and I, and also as somebody who's just curious, like I could never just focus on only one, you know, one part, cause it's just, I want to understand how all the pieces fit together. I did a similar experience getting involved in development because I
Vik (06:38.225)
Yes.
Lucas Longacre (06:53.779)
started building in no code. started using bubble. You ever hear of bubble.io? Just because we need to get some websites up and running for my startup I had and somebody had to do it. And it's funny because I kept finding out the limitations very quickly. Like it works great when you do the canned stuff out of the, you know, out of the box. But once you start wanting to manipulate it a little bit to personalize it, customize it, all of a sudden I'm learning CSS, I'm learning HTML, I'm learning basic, you know, JavaScript. And I just started
being self-taught, watching YouTube videos. And that's when I realized I was like, really need to get a formal education. Because you can teach yourself a lot nowadays, it's incredible. But I think being able to teach yourself is a valuable skill you're gonna need in any industry and especially in computer science. taking a formal class, think is very important. Like for me, it gave me a structured learning. And it also maybe it introduced me to you and other professors and.
Vik (07:43.9)
Yes.
Lucas Longacre (07:49.601)
it expanded my network. It's like why you go to college, right, is for not just the information, you go for all the, you know, the human part of it. So anyway, I would recommend if somebody is like deciding whether to do that or not, like you might want to consider it.
Vik (07:58.8)
Exactly. No, could relate that to like, you should, you should. I actually tell people that across the board, I have a lot of hobbies and interests. I'm also a musician. I play the drums and I'm in a base and stuff like that. And then I'm also like a competitive bodybuilder. And so I'm in the gym, like I'm a gym rat and all of that stuff. But across the board, I recommend that when people truly want to push to the next level.
get a coach. Even my coach has a coach and he learns something new every day and then he teaches me what he learns and it trickles down. That's some like nice true trickle down economics there where you can get like generational knowledge through, you know, having a coach, maybe not just anybody. Definitely see somebody you jam with that, you know, resonates with you and that you vibe with. But with anything you do, you can teach yourself so much and that's a handy skill. But when you feel like you're plateauing and you're not quite getting any more results that you would need, you don't
Lucas Longacre (08:29.164)
Mm-hmm.
Vik (08:57.081)
always have to have a coach. Me personally, I always have a coach. But you know, sometimes that's not feasible for people. But if you feel like you're stalling out and plateauing, definitely get a coach, get a teacher, get a mentor, get somebody else that you can collaborate with on your journey. And so I can parallel that with like all of my interests, especially software engineering. So I'm glad you mentioned it.
Lucas Longacre (09:12.174)
Yeah, I love that advice.
Lucas Longacre (09:17.57)
Well, I'll say that you're an instructor as well. being a coach, being an instructor is a great way to learn too. I mean, when I was teaching film and television, I really learned what I was doing. You know, I knew what I was doing, you know, on the set, you know, on a production, but having to then communicate that to somebody who doesn't know, forces you to learn your material that much better and be able to communicate it. So yeah, get a coach, be a coach, right?
Vik (09:25.329)
That
Vik (09:39.422)
Yeah, that's why I got into it. If you wanted that as a segue, that's exactly why I became a mentor with Great Learning and just got into the tutoring and, know.
Lucas Longacre (09:44.631)
Yeah.
Vik (09:51.556)
I wasn't paying attention to how many people describe me as a strong communicator until that point. And I was like, you know what? I want to have deep knowledge of my domain. And I always hear that, you you truly understand something when you could teach it to somebody else or even better teach it to a child. So like how plainly can I explain this, especially in the context that, you know.
Lucas Longacre (10:06.7)
Mm-hmm.
Vik (10:12.719)
Maybe people are coming from other disciplines. Maybe they're coming from a film background and now they're learning software engineering. You know, you can't just get people all caught up in technical jargon. So I'm glad you brought that up too, especially. I think that software engineering as a whole is something that can be so related to natural like occurrences in life and model through object oriented programming. You start to break it down like, I'm just describing things in real life. And I don't know. It's just.
it should be a very natural language type thing to do.
Lucas Longacre (10:45.58)
sure. Well, so for being, you know, full stack, that means you have to cover a lot of service areas, you were saying front end, backend, databases, API's deployments. So is it like, it's obviously not enough just to be kind of mediocre at everything. I mean, how do you find depth in all those different fields when you approach that?
Vik (11:04.635)
Yes, I do think that almost everybody that is a full stack engineer now, or at least a very good one, started with one end of the stack and got like an established roots there. That's what I did. And a lot of my colleagues that were also full stack engineers, they were either, they started out through front end engineering like I did, being more interested in the graphics and kind of design of things, or they started out more interested in data and like numbers and processing and more on the back
They start out there and then you start to realize through, guess, if you're a backend engineer, you have to know how to discuss things and interface with front-end engineers on your team. And then vice versa, if you're a front-end engineer, you need to know how to collaborate with backend engineers. You start to realize the importance and at least...
I feel like once you work with someone and collaborate on one, then you realize the importance and what's going on on the other side. And then you start to research more. Well, this other guy that I'm working with is always talking about react. Maybe I should look into that if that's what I'm writing the API is for and then vice versa. I know our backends are using, I don't know, MongoDB. So maybe there is some flexibility in the data models that can satisfy like this new feature that my boss wants me to make. And the designs are kind of.
So we might need to get creative here. We might need something more flexible than a relational database approach. So that's what I think is like you just you start somewhere and grow to see the grow to appreciate the other side of the stack and then start to leverage knowledge through the teams that you're on and like collaboration. And then next thing you know, you're a full stack engineer because it definitely came along with career.
Lucas Longacre (12:45.422)
Yeah, it's funny because I thought I was more of a front end guy. that was similar to what caught my interest. Then once I started digging into data and like understanding a database and how like the power you have when you have like data to play with and all the different ways you can grab insights and interpret it. That's when I realized like, man, like I guess I'm a data backend guy, partly because of that. Like even though I still love the front end work, in fact, in, creating the front end work is kind of more fun, like quote unquote fun for me, but the true like
Vik (12:57.243)
Yes.
Lucas Longacre (13:14.826)
excitement that gets me waking up every day excited to go to work is like seeing what I can do with the data. But yeah. Yes, exactly.
Vik (13:22.173)
You sound like a true full stack engineer. It seems like the ends of the stack make you like wake up like, what a beautiful day. I love to hear it.
Lucas Longacre (13:28.418)
Yeah, that's for sure. Would you look at engineering like five years ago? Because you've been at this for a little while now, like for a bit, right? I mean, what is the big difference between like five years ago and now? What are kind of the biggest differences you've seen about how we like approach problems and solve problems? And I'm talking like, we're not even jumping to the AI conversation yet. I just mean in the work you've experienced.
Vik (13:38.993)
Yeah.
Vik (13:54.59)
Okay then, because you took it straight out of my mouth, I was gonna say the Hawaii i think, it was really like the big elephant in the room. from, if I didn't say that, then I would honestly say like moving into next gen technologies like Next.js and some of those frameworks, really I see the industry, the full stack industry doubling down on server side rendering and taking that approach to building web apps. So that does like...
mean that as a whole we're focusing more on performance. So that would probably be the major difference that I've seen between then and now. Because I think five years ago, yeah.
Lucas Longacre (14:32.59)
That's a great response, because I've noticed too, like, yeah, people have expectations now how an app or a web app should behave, where it should be immediate and fast. you know, it's just crazy what the expectations people have now interacting with technology.
Vik (14:51.235)
I really think people are starting to be more flexible on the roles of the
quote unquote front end and back end. And that's where it's stronger now than ever to be a full stack engineer that can be more flexible. I know how each side plays. I have experience in both. And so, you know, with server side rendering and even just the idea of it, even just the idea of the backend really driving things and the front end just housing all this data and like thinking more along templates and layouts, just being hydrated like.
Even just the concept, it's a full stack concept. There's the same system that we're working on, but now you're leaning a little bit more on the backend to drive some graphical things. Like, it's a full stack concept and some people might just be used to siloing and only being front-end or backend, but yeah.
Lucas Longacre (15:40.982)
Yeah. So what do you prefer to work in? what's the, if you had a personal project you were going to develop, like what, what are the decisions you'd make and why would you do that?
Vik (15:50.46)
Yeah, lately I've been working with Next.js, I really enjoy it. I think TypeScript is something that's that's blown up within the last five years. And going back to that, TypeScript is very useful and that's being appreciated and utilized more nowadays. Just having some type safety in web development ain't a bad thing. We don't have to save all the type safety for Java and C Sharp. And I just like that.
Lucas Longacre (16:12.463)
Definitely not.
Vik (16:19.973)
A lot of the modern tooling is very supportive of Next.js. All the blogs, all the stuff from the community, everybody saying Next.js is my go-to. I would almost say that I'm not a late bloomer on it. I was the first person to lead a migration at Baxter for us to move some of the old legacy software to Next.js. But I would say it wasn't until I went to a conference and saw something demoed in it, I was like...
Lucas Longacre (16:47.725)
Not bad. Yeah, I mean, to me, that's always the exciting thing is like, playing with the new technology, learning new things can be very rewarding, but at the same time, especially in business, like you don't have that learning curve is steep, as in like, you don't have time to invest playing around. I always try to have personal projects on the side I'm developing. And mostly it's for my own education. It's because I don't have the risk quotas too high at work. I can't do that.
Vik (16:48.071)
Okay, I'm sold.
Lucas Longacre (17:17.271)
as well as I just, have too many other tasks and jobs I need to do for work. So I use those like side projects to experiment. like I have a, for my family, I'm building this video archive or media archive, I should call it, cause it's photos too. But I was playing with Claude code and like doing like the agent coding, agent decoding, because I was like, I I'm sick of this Vimeo subscription. They keep raising the price and I never use it. And so instead I,
priced out what it would cost to just develop the infrastructure myself and build a personalized app. And the reason I'm saying this is because I use Next.js. But honestly, that was with Claude. I essentially built the stack with it and architected it ahead of time and then ran with it. anyway, for me, that's how I get around that learning curve. But it is kind of scary at times to experiment with new technology in a way where you're unfamiliar with it because you know there's a steep like
Vik (17:59.101)
genes.
Vik (18:02.887)
love that.
Lucas Longacre (18:12.911)
you know, curve to you feel comfortable and you're proficient with it.
Vik (18:17.489)
But that's why developing when you're working on personal projects and really even in the professional like workplace, developing out of need helps you drive to overcome that learning curve. Like, yo, I don't want to pay that much for this Vimeo subscription anymore. I really could just take the time to put some elbow grease and sweat equity into it. And I'll come out with a new skill and my own personal like, you know.
Lucas Longacre (18:30.084)
Mm-hmm.
Lucas Longacre (18:43.833)
Yeah, trust me, my wife over the weekend was like, you're still working on that thing? I was like, I know. It was only supposed to be like a side project this morning when I was having my coffee and now it's like 3 PM and I'm still working on it. you're right, it because I didn't want to have to spend the money and the resources. Yeah.
Vik (18:55.121)
dedicated you'll thank me later you'll thank me later when it's
Lucas Longacre (19:00.143)
Exactly. You'll thank me. You'll thank me. So this is a good segue, think, to, know, for say you're a younger engineer starting out today, like what is some of the advice you would give them on if they're thinking of potentially about like, oh, do I want to be front end, back end, full stack? Like what was what's the advice you would give to a young engineer starting out?
Vik (19:21.295)
yeah. I would say if you're like Lucas and both sides really appeal to you out of the bat, there are great approaches, especially now for full stack engineering. Like check out Next.js. Truly that's a framework that utilizes the front and the back end very fluidly and comprehensively. So that's something that I would say about Next.js and how you can...
really be using React, which is an industry standard. the fact that you're using React and Next.js is already gonna give you that much more marketability in today's job market. But then I would really say if you're not like that and you're not gemming or you don't care that much about the backend yet or you don't care that much about the frontend yet, you don't have to force yourself to do that. I would say for most people,
Pick the one that interests you the most and learn programming with your fundamentals just being founded in one or the other. And then you'll see the opportunity to gain the knowledge in the other. So I think long-term it would behoove you to be a full stack engineer, be full stack minded. I do still lean front end. So like in my resume and my LinkedIn, my professional profiles, I say I'm a full stack capable front end specialist because I've always been down with front end engineering, but I'm capable of working across the stack.
And people do like to see that you have passion in one or the other. You're not like a jack of all trades. So establish yourself in one and then grow to understand the other. And you'll be a full stack engineer in no time. you just, you know, take your interest and keep programming is the first, is the first piece of advice.
Lucas Longacre (21:05.369)
How important do you think like design skills translates to being good at front end full stack? Cause I'll say like, think maybe one of the reasons I also love data so much and get so into there is I'm not a designer and like, I think some of my favorite full stack engineers have like just an innate great eye and feel for design.
Vik (21:23.845)
Yeah, that's where I guess some of my, like I said, I'm a musician as well and that's where some of my creative aspects really kick in. My wife is actually, she has a degree in illustration and design. She went to art school. I've always been around artists. I feel like I kind of had the advantage there more than some people to just have an eye for, that's a little too much margin. That's a little too much.
That's not quite a line. Let me tweak this and ask the designer. you know what? You're right. Hey, we're working together on this. If you have an eye for design, that's great. And that's an advantage in this market. I'll tell you, a lot of programmers can't design worth anything. If you give them a design, they can render it through code. You know, I can code and make this appear. But asking them to design something is actually a rare skill set. So if you don't have an eye for design,
There are some books, don't quote me on it. I think it is like how to design things or designing things for the common person, something like that. It's like required reading at Apple and Steve Jobs was really big about the book. And that's just something to look at the natural design of things, even like door handles and stuff like that. How easy are you making it for the person that's going to use it? That's a handy skill for any.
Lucas Longacre (22:40.421)
for sure. All right, I think it's time to kind of pivot to the topic of the day, the year, the elephant in the room, which is artificial intelligence and how large language models are really reshaping coding with agentic coding. So I would love to get some of your thoughts and reaction on how it's been affecting your role today as you see it, and also some of your predictions on what you think is going to be.
in store for us over the next few months,
Vik (23:14.961)
Yeah. let's see as far as with my role and how I'm using AI, like right now, I think that agenting coding is really the way to go with how you're using it. I kind of think of AI is like working with a junior dev or somebody like that. You know, we're able to pair program, work on tasks together. Some of the smaller coding tasks, I can leave that up to the agents, you know, but I'm always supervising something. It's like,
Lucas Longacre (23:32.975)
Mm-hmm.
Vik (23:44.772)
know, mentoring and working along with somebody, but always supervising, always double checking. I use Windsurf, like, as my preferred ID when I'm working. And, you know, I'm just...
What I like to lean on into is guardrails and just constantly having like a human in the loop. I don't just let it rip. really have seen my role shift from writing code more to thinking of requirements and guidelines for how I want this AI to work for me and doing the dev work and then reviewing everything. Really, you know, I was already peer reviewing my coworkers code for, you know, code reviews and stuff like that. Now I'm just reviewing the agent's code all of the time and working incrementally.
So not just saying, build me a Spotify clone. You know, work component to component, know, break down your requirements, what you're really expecting. And really, you...
Lucas Longacre (24:33.518)
Yeah.
Vik (24:43.719)
decompose everything the same way that you would when you're making tickets or work items for your Kanban board or something like that. And that's how I really work with Windsurf and that's my preferred idea. I also work with Claude sometimes just when I'm using some LLMs and VS Code and like I have this connector called continue.dev and you could just pick different agents you can work with. I'll use Claude's on it in there.
Lucas Longacre (24:48.474)
Mm-hmm.
Lucas Longacre (25:08.912)
Yeah, I for me, I, whenever I build anything with this and it's what I've realized is how useful it is. said the need. So my dev teams too busy. They, know, they, they have a backlog that is like, it grows every day. Right. And so there were times precious, but oftentimes my colleagues have a basic need of something where they're just, they're working. There's too much manual labor. Things aren't automated. And I'm like, wow, I could just write you a script.
to do that task. And so what I do typically is I interview my colleagues. Yeah. And I say, like, what are you doing? That's like time consuming. And I write, create a little basic web app for them. I, you know, deploy it within the hour and they're already up and running and using it. And it's like the fact that you can do that stuff with like, you know, make and have real authentication. It's secure. Right. It's like, it's incredible what you're able to build fast.
Vik (25:49.71)
Ugh.
Lucas Longacre (26:05.825)
And I know that by doing that, I'm taking the heat off the dev team so they can focus on the big, you know, product roadmap changes. And I can also make it more efficient for people. And for me, that's a good, yeah, it takes some time out of my day, but in fact, it's actually probably less time than like getting people requests. like requests for data pools or something from the database, right? Or analyzing stuff. It's like, if I just give you the tools to do this yourself, it'll save me time. It'll save you time and everybody's happy. I, so I've been, but my
Vik (26:13.149)
you
Lucas Longacre (26:35.375)
This is a long way of saying this. So I found to build those things, the more time I spend in the planning, the architecting, the whole process takes way longer upfront to get everything set. And then, like you said, incrementally rolling that out and monitoring it. Because it's crazy how if you let things rip, it's all of sudden you are 10 blocks down the road in the wrong direction. So that is a thing I've also, I'm not confident enough yet in the tools to be able to just like,
Vik (26:50.651)
Man.
Lucas Longacre (27:05.315)
basic stuff, I just go build me the Spotify clone. Like, no, that's insane to me. I like, I'm not confident enough yet. Not to say we're not going to get there, but I agree. think having that like incremental approach and doing a lot of prep work before you get there is a is a big deal.
Vik (27:20.487)
That's just the way to use the tool currently. And as the tool becomes better, we're able to use it in different ways, like telling it to just build the Spotify clone. Someday, somehow.
Lucas Longacre (27:28.835)
Yeah. So yeah, mean, and that's kind of my prediction though with where we're headed with all this stuff is sadly, I don't think we're gonna do less work. I think in many ways it's not like, just let it go and it'll do the Spotify clone. I'm gonna go like hit the gym. Like, no, what's gonna happen is you're gonna be expected to be like, can you have a full demo of this up and running in an hour? And then if that's works, then now get me three versions of this. Like my prediction is that we're gonna be so much more productive, especially engineers and especially
full stack engineers are gonna be way more in demand, right? Because it's like, you can do everything, so we don't need to hire this whole engineering team. We have you and all these agents. Now build me the same thing but quicker, right? And that's my prediction, which I'm not gonna say is necessarily a bad thing, but I do think the expectations are gonna be so much higher for what you have to do as a solo full stack engineer.
Vik (28:11.069)
Bye.
Vik (28:20.701)
Yeah, I 100 % agree. There's going to be a shift like that. think that I forget what law it is, but you know, it says like the whole idea is that as much time as you give somebody to do something, that's how long they're going to take to do it. Like our 40 hour a week, so I'm going to get any shorter by having AI productivity. We're going to just be changing our efforts and where they lie to facilitate the same thing. And you know, like you said,
for better or for worse for some people, I guess.
Lucas Longacre (28:51.194)
Well, I'll say that think there's gonna be a lot of what you were describing too of like, I spent a lot of time reviewing code. Not writing it anymore or as often, but I review a lot of it. Yeah.
Vik (29:04.225)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess I can see some, I have an interest in every part of it. So, you know, I love that. I'm glad that I feel like my psychology minor is actually helping me work with AI more effectively than some people.
except it's adoption, just from being a little more open-minded within the technical space. feel like highly technical people are still pretty skeptical about AI and are not saying it's going to be better than us. There's some way it fits into the picture, otherwise nobody would have really made it and related it to what we're doing here,
Lucas Longacre (29:38.395)
I mean, one of the things I am worried about, cause I've seen it in myself too, like my role really never required me to be writing too much code and being that technical. had to have an understanding of it, but already I feel like in some ways I've actually been coding more than ever, but at the same time, like if I had those basics, I, I forced myself to learn that stuff. Right. So I can, I can go through lots of lines of code and identify, like it's funny, I was going through like, what's it called for different off stuff and getting,
you know, doing a lot of different API calls that I was running on this one project. And I understand how those are structured so I can go in there and audit it. But I'm like, I feel like a lot of these fundamentals are going to be just completely lost from younger, you know, people coming up in the industry if they aren't forced to take the time to slow down to like learn the language, right? Or learn the process. Is that something you've experienced? I know you're an instructor. So have you been seeing that kind of creep get in there where people are just not willing to put in the time to do it slow?
Vik (30:35.793)
Yeah, yeah, I definitely think that I'm starting to see that as more people come over and learn about web development and software engineering. They're like, hey, I mean.
the AI can just kind of do this for me now. And I'm like, all right, do you know why I made this decision? And I'm like, I'm still reviewing this code and AI still makes mistakes. Can you even look at the code and just call out a bug if there's one staring right at you in the face? It's really like you should understand what you're using and then understand the pains, pain points that AI is relieving for you, not just using it to be using it. And yeah, I did get more and more students
Lucas Longacre (31:02.352)
Mm-hmm.
Vik (31:17.343)
like asking for tutoring because like, hey, this is, you know, this is not really like I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this and I tried to make my own app that does this time the other and I don't even know why they what's going on here. I'm like looking at them. Why did you decide to use this? I don't know the agent shows that.
Lucas Longacre (31:26.896)
You
Lucas Longacre (31:35.841)
Yeah.
Vik (31:37.661)
All right, well, this is an anti-pattern. I don't know why the agent chose that. If you nudged it, it probably would have corrected it, but you don't know how to nudge it in the direction that you need to collaborate with AI, not just have it do everything for you.
Lucas Longacre (31:40.004)
Okay.
Lucas Longacre (31:52.593)
Yeah, think that's like I said, I think that's my concern. And also like, I'm gonna have to be working with employing, know, and people for the rest of my career. And that is a concern, I think that like, eventually you're gonna run out of, or I should say, if you develop those skills from a positive point, I recommend if you're starting out and you're young right now, take online classes, to, you know, go to your community college and like brush up on coding skills, you know?
just basic language stuff. some of these old languages are maybe worth just playing around with to learn the basics, which can be really fun. mean, enjoyed that. For me, was like a puzzle to try to figure out how to get all these things working.
Vik (32:30.766)
Exactly.
Vik (32:38.555)
Yeah, I mean, I'd hate to see anything lost. Like even, you know, they say like writing in cursive and handwriting and stuff is a dying skill. People don't know how to write in cursive at all anymore. was like, I was taught to write cursive in school at least. And I was born in 96. So at least there's that. But now I know there's a lot of people, they only know how to type. You ask people to write in cursive, I don't know, I can hardly just write.
And I don't want coding fundamentals, not saying that it would die out that fast, but we as humans, things just come and go out of habit. People are doing less critical thinking and more leaning into agents and such, which I think we need to be utilizing them to their fullest power in the right way within our processes, not being lazy because of it.
Lucas Longacre (33:26.864)
So how do you stay on top of what's out there in the world? For me, I follow different sub stack authors, I watch videos, I follow people on YouTube. I go to industry events too. I definitely try to do that. In fact, I have three that I'm trying to book for this year. But how about yourself? How do you stay current and stay on top of stuff?
Vik (33:47.494)
Yeah, yeah, I try to go to at least one conference a year, at least one. And then newsletters are great. I have like the code by Superhuman. That's one of my favorite ones about like keeping me up to date on AI. And there's the pragmatic engineer. There's another one. Am I allowed to shout these out? Yeah, let's shout them out.
Lucas Longacre (34:06.533)
Yeah, please, and I'll share my list with you even offline. I'd love to get a list going. We can put them in the comments. Yeah, yeah.
Vik (34:11.761)
Yes, yes, please do. That's how we do this. That's how we do this. Yeah. then, bytes is another good one by Tyler McGinnis just for react, like engineering and JavaScript world stuff, web development in general.
It's a pretty good spread. definitely newsletters is a favorite one for me. And I do take like a Gen Z approach and like load up some shorts, man, and just doom scroll a whole bunch of tech reels. Like this is my dedicated learning time where I'm about to doom scroll tech reels only though. But there's a lot of things that are coming up in short form that, you know, are cool little gotchas, tips, tidbits that you don't think of sometimes. So that's another good.
Lucas Longacre (34:35.951)
Mm-hmm.
Lucas Longacre (34:51.799)
I've seen how people have built, you're right, it's a little short that shows something they've built that blows my mind because I'm like, I never in a million years would have thought to do that. Some of it's silly, some of it's weird. But the idea of like, I got this crazy app to do something or I interacted with stuff in my house with my, I coded this myself. I do find those fascinating. Is there anything, yeah, podcasts. I listen to a lot of podcasts as well when I walk my dog.
Vik (35:12.541)
And then of course podcast.
Lucas Longacre (35:20.625)
Is there anything that you wish people would like ask you more or like something about your approach your career that you'd like rarely get asked?
Vik (35:29.999)
Hmm I'll say I don't rarely get asked this now people ask way more but I'm glad they ask about like the humans role and programming and like with AI and everything and I feel like I've always thought about the humans role regardless because of the psychology thing and like human computer interaction and I feel like
I've always thought about both sides of the mirror too, like not just the end user and how we can make the app more accessible and easier for them to use, but also the developer. How can we make it easier for the dev to build this out? What's the latest and greatest thing for dev productivity? And I'm finding that that's helping me have a more marketable skillset, I wish people would ask me more about like, you
Where is the human aspect of this? What makes this human centered? What can the AI not necessarily reproduce that keeps a human in the loop, which is a really big concept at Anthropic, which Anthropic is known for ethical engineering and like ethical AI use. And I'm a huge proponent of everything that they teach. Like, so like, where's the human in the loop part of this for like AI use, or what is human centered engineering for when we're building apps?
I'll say accessibility is something that, that's a big tip for junior engineers too. Accessibility matters way more than you think it does. So go ahead and double down and know what WCAG is and Ali and all those.
all the accessibility topics hit that. That's not optional learning, that's mandatory now. And it has moved from a nice to have to governance. There are laws stating that applications have to have that. But for accessibility, it took me volunteering for like disabled people and like under-representative communities and stuff to realize, yo, this actually makes a difference for some people.
Vik (37:22.619)
to just go about life, to get information, to use your app. Let's say you're just a greedy billionaire or something like that. If you want to make the biggest buck and you want to get everybody's money, then your app should probably be accessible and blind people should probably be able to use it, you know? And deaf people should probably be able to enjoy.
Lucas Longacre (37:24.977)
Mm-hmm.
Lucas Longacre (37:35.696)
Yeah, I love you saying that when we were building my startup and I had, I was the one who's making the site. We got dinged by like our designer. Thankfully it was like, by the way, your site's terrible for accessibility. was like, what do mean? Because I'd never even heard of it before. I didn't really think that was the thing you had to do. and she was like, this is what you could do. Audits. You go through the whole audit process. And even though we didn't get it like a hundred percent better, just going through the process, learning what you can do.
is it was very eye-opening. And honestly, I love that you said that, because I do think it's, those are the opportunities if you want to like get really good at, you know, sure, there's front end, there's back end, they're full stack, like we're saying, you got to do it all. But you could sharpen your skills, whether it's security, like web security. I have this other podcast I recorded a couple weeks ago, I haven't released yet, but it was all about AI and security and safety. Because I was like, if you're gonna...
Vik (38:24.796)
yeah. yeah.
Lucas Longacre (38:26.501)
go into a field right now, what's a good field to go into? Well, you might start thinking about security and safety. Accessibility is another great recommendation. Like, yes, get all your skills across the board in full stack, but if you wanna go really deep into something that would make you very attractive to have as a consultant or just a skillset you bring to the team, accessibility is a great recommendation.
Vik (38:35.281)
Yes.
Vik (38:46.228)
yeah.
Big time. I'd definitely say those two accessibility and security like huge, like largely under, largely underrated.
Lucas Longacre (38:54.735)
Yeah, we obviously don't have enough people working in that. Yeah. Cool. Well, so are you developing anything yourself? Just like, you know, I have my personal projects that tend to overlap with my like interests, like you said, are you developing anything like on the side just to play around with outside of work?
Vik (39:11.557)
Yeah, dude. Yeah. So a couple of projects that I completed recently were like a productivity suite. I've been working on like lead code and stuff like that because I was like, I need to keep those chops up a little bit. Let me stretch my lead code muscles. Yeah, not just in the gym, you know? So but I was like, you know, this is like a study habit and I've been out of college for years. So
Lucas Longacre (39:24.279)
Mm-hmm, yeah, not just in the gym.
Vik (39:35.142)
I took a couple of my favorite productivity things like a don't break the chain. You try to study every day, even if it's just 10 minutes and you get to tick off that day on a calendar. That's great for me. I have ADHD. So the visual reminder is just, it's great fuel. And then also just putting my habits into a tracker and getting a streak and just visualizing that, writing down goals, having a Pomodoro timer built into. I built this with Firebase Studio when it first came out.
And so using that full stack approach for AI, wasn't just trying to build like the front end, it would build end to end your entire application in Next.js using Next.js. So I was like, perfect. I already like Next, I already like TypeScript, everything. Cool, sweet, let's do it. So that's why I really got into full stack engineering with AI too, playing around with Firebase Studio. So I built that habit tracker and then I built like a slight meetup clone because I'm talking to some people that are thinking about
building this time the other and I was like, huh, let's check out what events apps really have going on. So I did some research and just poured market research. I didn't even look myself. I was like just playing with AI man. So I had Claude do some market research and then use the export from that as like the, you know, the input for an XJS app that would just print out what the
Lucas Longacre (40:41.009)
Mm-hmm.
Vik (40:53.813)
optimal events app would look like and what types of features we could have. But here's the kicker I like is that you don't have to log in. A lot of people are getting tired of making accounts and if you can't just one click sign in with Google, they're already getting irritated, this, that, and the other. how can we use the system? Maybe you just get a login link to your email whenever you want to actually access it. Something that just keeps the user's data personal. My system doesn't need all of your information.
Lucas Longacre (41:03.637)
yeah.
Vik (41:20.443)
And a lot of systems these days, they just take all your information. I don't need all that. What events do you want to go to?
Lucas Longacre (41:24.647)
I'm digging that dude. think so much of the new solutions that are coming. So my whole theory is that, disposable applications that are not for millions of users, they're hyper, you know, personalized that you just build them for your little network of people. it. You it's like, we don't even want people on this app. This is just for us to play around with. And honestly, like there's a privacy element to it. That's great. Right. You can like, but also then you don't have to be.
creating account after account or whatever, or giving away your information, give away your data. Build your own app, invite only the VIP people you want on it. I actually created a Dungeon Master Assistant app, because I was realizing I do Dungeons and Dragons and I was a Dungeon Master, but I don't have any of the gear anymore. I don't have the books, I don't have the maps, don't have any of the tools that I should have as a Dungeon Master, but they're all online.
Vik (42:09.479)
Nice.
Lucas Longacre (42:21.103)
And most of it's free. It's like public domain. So I essentially built the, what I would want it in a, a, a dungeon master assistant where it's like, I can do fog fog of war for the battle maps. I can, literally just recently put in YouTube playlist so you can have your, your, songs playing along that you can like, I'm in a battle skip to this playlist. and now we're just in a tavern skip to this playlist. it also records your sessions and does like recaps for you and like, so all these functionalities that I love, but at the same time, like.
Vik (42:43.526)
Nice.
Lucas Longacre (42:51.097)
I can just make them for me. don't have to make this app for, and also some of it's my frustration being a head of product is you're always making compromises to try to appeal to everyone, right? And you're never gonna, but you wanna make it as accessible as possible, right? But also you have to take into account so many different user types. It's incredible to be like, this is for me and my friends and that's it. We can do whatever weird stuff we wanna do. And that's who, yeah.
Vik (43:16.431)
I'm the target audience.
Lucas Longacre (43:18.213)
So anyway, that's, and I do think these personalized disposable apps are gonna be like taking over soon is my prediction.
Vik (43:25.757)
I love that, because that was like the third thing that I'm building that I just started was because the budgeting app that I use has kept cranking up the price and I've had enough. I'm working on making my own budgeting app with a lot less functionality because they bloated it out now, obviously. I only need this little skeleton piece and I'm gonna build it myself and any of my homies that need it, I'll have you looping.
Lucas Longacre (43:35.045)
Mm-hmm.
Lucas Longacre (43:41.541)
Yeah, because you only what you need, right? And you can customize it.
Lucas Longacre (43:50.063)
Honestly, that's thank you. think that is the future right there. And I do think a lot of software companies should be shaking in their boots to be like, instead of being too complex, you got to make it easy, flexible, customizable, or else you're going to be in the dustbin.
Vik (43:56.253)
I'm it like...
Vik (44:04.325)
Yeah. They're like the microbreweries of software engineering now.
Lucas Longacre (44:09.049)
Yes, yes, that's a good way to put it. Cool, well thank you so much, Vic. I don't really have any other questions, but why don't you tell listeners where they can find you, how they can find you online and interact with you.
Vik (44:24.7)
Yeah.
I am at the dreaded dragon everywhere. Find me on Instagram. That's kind of my eclectic page where I have all my bodybuilding and music ventures. Keep up with me there. also put my updates on little software engineering things. mainly a lot of reposts and such on X so you can find me there and then, feel free. Shoot me a connection request on LinkedIn. I'm at Vic Williamson on LinkedIn as well. Grow your network. That's the biggest thing you could really do for yourself no matter what discipline you're in.
And I think that's about it. Find me and hit me up. Let me know that you found me through here and I'd love to collaborate. I'd love to chop it up.
Lucas Longacre (45:03.057)
All right, I'll be following you for sure on some of those other socials that I don't follow you on. I only follow you on LinkedIn, which is way too professional. That's not how I roll. Great. Well, thank you for taking the time speaking with me today. And I'm definitely going to reach out about that financial app at some point. All right. Thanks so much,
Vik (45:22.212)
yeah.
Vik (45:25.694)
Thanks Lucas, see ya.
Lucas Longacre (45:27.346)
Alright, so...
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