An very practical question in the AI era is now in front of us: all demands that rely solely on stacking code are being rapidly eroded.

Imagine this scenario. An independent developer from India, equipped with AI tools like Cursor and Claude, can produce in one day what might take you an entire week. The stark difference in productivity is obvious—what do you use to compete? Hard-core technical stacks? Burning more overtime? These approaches are becoming less and less viable.

The key insight is actually very simple: **You should not be fighting on this battlefield at all**.

There is a well-known case in the industry. A developer used AI programming tools to complete a project in just a few hours that would normally take several days. This is not an isolated case; it’s the new normal.

So where is the real differentiation? It lies in whether you can step out of the pure software competition circle. Think about the business value behind genuine user needs, design products rather than just write code, build your own creative barriers and market insights. Use AI as a productivity tool to amplify your advantages, rather than falling into the trap of competing with machines on speed.

The future path for excellent developers must be in higher-dimensional competition.