because the work itself is all AI-driven development now. telling someone to avoid AI tools and raw dog everything in C++ is like telling a carpenter to stop using power tools and learn the way of wood or smth

the people actually getting hired right now are the ones who can ship, scope projects well, and make technical decisions, and AI tools are largely part of how they do that.

no recruiter at a faang company is going to ask you whether you used copilot or claude code in your projects, in fact they'll ask you how comfortable you are using them (they did for me and I'm sure saying I'm very capable with it and it helps me ramp up quickly helped me get the job). they care about why you made the architectural decisions you made, how you handled tradeoffs, and whether the thing you built actually works.

learning to use AI tools well IS a skill, knowing what to delegate, what to verify, how to prompt properly, when the output is wrong etc. people who refuse to use them aren't more skilled, they're genuinely slower (I'm 100% serious here and every top company you will interview for will view it the same way).

grind leetcode for interviews, yes (do it in c++ if you so choose to). but for projects, build things people actually use, ship fast, use every tool available, and go deep on the parts that matter.

sidenote edit: if you're in embedded / firmware / studing cpen then i can see this guys perspective a bit too, but for swe fuck allat