The Meta engineer using AI as a thinking partner

For Kulkarni, AI is less a shortcut and more of a cognitive sparring partner. He invests roughly $50 monthly in subscriptions to ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, treating these platforms as sounding boards to pressure-test his own logic. He admits that he initially made the mistake of outsourcing entire problems to AI, but has since shifted his approach: he now develops his own concepts first, using the software primarily to challenge his assumptions and identify blind spots.

This shift in workflow has required a change in mindset. Kulkarni describes his role as evolving from a traditional executor into an architect, a transition he acknowledges can be mentally taxing for many in the tech sector. To balance this constant learning with his personal life, he has consciously pruned his digital consumption, cutting back on passive content like YouTube Shorts and Netflix to carve out space for skill development. Despite industry volatility and the rapid rise of generative models, Kulkarni maintains that the core of his work remains human-centric, focusing on solving problems for people rather than simply chasing the latest software trends.