Writing code by hand builds something that survives the day you stop doing it. You learn what a function costs, where state hides, and why a small change breaks something far away.
That understanding turns out to be the most useful thing you can bring to an agent. You ask better questions, because you know what the answers should look like. You notice the plausible output that is quietly wrong.
New engineers who learn to code by hand will likely have an edge, even if their jobs never ask for it. Coding is changing form, and the understanding underneath it does not.
The hands may go idle, but the model you built with them keeps working.
Kay
P.S. Walk through the plan-first loop, a free guide to predicting before you build. https://systemthinkinglab.ai/learn/plan-first-loop/