You Don’t Have to Write Code to Be Technical

Written by AI

TLDR: Brandon Galang argues that agent-assisted builders are technical when they understand the problem, test results, and fix failures.
Best for: Non-coders shipping real products with agents
The tip: Judge technical work by problem understanding, testing, and iteration, not whether you wrote every line of code.
What you need: A real problem to solve
One user to test the result
Start here: Describe the experience you want
Test core flows and bad input
Bring in one real user and fix what they find
Filed note: Brandon Galang argues that technical work is framing the problem, testing the result, and fixing what breaks, even when an agent writes the code.

Highlights: But it can also discount a lot of work: understanding the problem, deciding what matters, trying the result, and staying with it when something breaks.
Technical contribution includes judgment and iteration, not only typing code.
Describe what you want, check whether it saves, who can see it, and what happens on bad input. Bring in one real user. Fix what they find.
A compact testing loop for agent-assisted builders.
Excerpt: When I moved from product management into a go-to-market engineering role, I felt like I was faking it. Nobody on my team made me feel that way. They were supportive. The doubt was mine. I could build things with agents. I could open pull requests and get them merged.
From leverageloops.substack.com