How AI Turned Me from a Copy-Paste Coder into a Confident Full-Stack Developer

Two years ago, I joined Dev.to with the same excitement every new dev feels — but quickly I realized that I had no direction, no project, and no clear voice.

I was just posting random content, sometimes copied, sometimes AI-generated, that lacked my own authentic voice.

My knowledge was only surface-level, and I had no real project to anchor my identity.

That realisation hit me hard.

I stepped away from all public platforms—including Dev.to—and made a silent promise:

“I won’t post again until I have something real to share — something built with my own hands.”

I wanted to become a *developer * who doesn’t just consume tutorials but creates meaningful tools, resources, and solutions.

To do that, I needed to build something from scratch.

That decision marked the start of an 18-month journey of intense learning, building, failing, and discovering what’s truly possible when you combine coding with AI.

From Basics to Building My Own Platform: doitwithai.tools

When I decided to take content creation seriously, I realised I needed a home for my ideas — a website built for long-term publishing and AI-focused education.

But as a junior developer familiar only with the basics of React/Next.js, building a fully optimised, scalable content platform was a daunting, near-impossible task—especially without a large budget.

All I had was basic knowledge of React and Next.js and a determination to build something that could last.

That’s when I turned to my most powerful coding partner — AI. 🤖

How AI Became My Coding Co-Founder

AI didn’t just help me write code — it changed how I thought about development.

Every time I hit a wall, AI became my debugging partner, my mentor, and my problem-solver.

Here are the details of how AI helped me through every phase of building Do It With AI Tools:

🧭 1. Niche & Direction

AI helped me brainstorm, analyse audiences, and identify a niche where I could merge my passions — coding, SEO, and content automation.

🎨 2. UI & Design

I used AI to generate UI concepts, wireframes, and even Tailwind-based components. Every layout, card, and animation was iterated with AI feedback.

⚙️ 3. Backend & CMS

The site runs on Next.js with Sanity CMS. AI guided me through schema design, data modeling, and optimizing content delivery for performance.

🧩 4. 2-layer caching system

This was one of the hardest parts. I implemented a two-layer caching system:

• Client Side: Utilizing Memory Caching (in-memory JS objects) and IndexedDB for fast, persistent content hydration.
• Server Side: Employing Redis via Upstash for scalable server-side data and API caching.
• Creating a unified caching system for seamless communication between Client-Side Caching (CSC) and Server-Side Caching (SSC).
• Implementing the stale-while-revalidate caching pattern for optimal content delivery.

🚀 5. SEO & Performance

From meta tags and schema to Core Web Vitals, code splitting, and reusable components — AI helped me refine every detail for speed and discoverability.

📚 6. AI Library & Content

I created a Free AI Library with downloadable AI assets
— tools, prompts, visuals, and docs — all curated and organized with AI’s help.

📝 7. Content Production

Even my articles, visuals, and videos were built through AI-assisted workflows, where I focused on strategy while AI accelerated creation.

🌍 8. Cross-Platform Scaling

Beyond the website, AI also helped create content strategies to scale the website across various platforms (TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.).

The Lessons Behind the Code

Each of these categories hides dozens of smaller challenges — debugging issues that kept me up at night.

AI didn’t remove the struggle — it made every challenge a deeper learning experience. Each bug, failed build, and late-night error became a chance to understand things that I once avoided.

*Through this process, I stopped seeing AI as a shortcut.
*
Instead, I started seeing it as a true coding companion.

Why Dev.to is My Destination Now

After 18 months of building, learning, and experimenting, I finally feel ready to share my journey — not as a consumer, but as a contributor.

This time, I’m here to share real, developer-focused knowledge on how AI is transforming the way we code, build, and scale.

I invite you to connect, challenge my workflows, and share your own experiences.

If you’re curious to see the finished architecture and resource library that resulted from this journey, you can visit Do It With AI tools

— it’s where all my hands-on work and experiments live.

Let’s explore what’s possible when we code with AI, not against it.