Coding ability was the bottleneck when coding was hard. It no longer is.
The constraint has shifted to software vision: the trained ability to notice when a problem is software-shaped. Like parkour vision — Alex Honnold sees a skyscraper as climbable; experienced programmers see repetitive tasks as automatable. That pattern-recognition is now the real gap.
This vision is learnable, but not instantly. It develops through exposure to software problems, through noticing friction in daily life, through asking “what if this were automated?” repeatedly. The experienced programmer still has an advantage — not because they can code, but because they’ve internalized a huge library of “this is the kind of thing software solves.”
The interesting flip: Previously, vision was useless without execution ability. Now vision alone can get you 80% of the way. The rare combo is excellent software vision + excellent specification skills — knowing what you want and being able to describe it clearly.
Connection to faith: Pastoral discernment is analogous. The experienced shepherd notices when a problem is spiritual-shaped, relational-shaped, or structural-shaped. That discernment compounds over years. It’s the real bottleneck in ministry, not information about theology.