AI Engineers Who Can’t Debug Are Getting Fired (Here’s How I Debug with Claude Code)

Last Updated on May 27, 2026 by Editorial Team Author(s): Felix Kebaya Originally published on Towards AI. AI Engineers Who Can’t Debug Are Getting Fired (Here’s How I Debug with Claude Code) “AI is creating a generation of developers who can’t debug their own code.” AI Engineers Who Can’t Debug Are Getting Fired (Here’s How I Debug with Claude Code)After introducing the “can’t debug” headline and arguing it’s only half right, the author demonstrates a hands-on workflow by intentionally breaking a production poll app with five real bugs. Using Claude Code (Opus 4.7), they show how clear symptom descriptions help the agent trace data flow and event chains across files to find root causes and apply fixes: missing database updates (votes not persisting after refresh), duplicate real-time subscriptions (updates firing twice), division-by-zero causing NaN% display, localStorage key mismatches preventing duplicate-vote blocking, and an async/await issue causing deletes to update only local state while deleted polls reappear. They conclude that AI agents don’t replace debugging skills; they expose gaps—especially the ability to isolate symptoms precisely and point the agent to the right code scope—making competent debuggers faster and less skilled ones feel the mismatch more sharply. Read the full blog for free on Medium. Join thousands of data leaders on the AI newsletter. Join over 80,000 subscribers and keep up to date with the latest developments in AI. From research to projects and ideas. If you are building an AI startup, an AI-related product, or a service, we invite you to consider becoming a sponsor. Published via Towards AI