Building ambitious software — Jonathan Kelley, Dioxus Labs & Cognition

Building ambitious software in the age of AI requires balancing high-velocity development with rigorous architectural standards. Dioxus, a cross-platform framework written in Rust, demonstrates that while AI coding agents excel at handling complex technical knowledge, debugging, and mundane tasks, they cannot replace the necessity of human-led architectural oversight. Although agents significantly accelerate feature implementation and testing, they often struggle with high-level design and maintaining long-term code quality. Consequently, the role of the software engineer has shifted from writing lines of code to architecting elegant, maintainable systems that anticipate future requirements. Success in this new paradigm depends on treating code as a commodity while prioritizing the quality, documentation, and structural integrity that define robust, production-grade software.