Hugh Williams, former Google and eBay engineering VP, recently spent two days deep in the weeds with Claude Code, Anthropic’s AI-powered coding assistant. His verdict? “It’s like being a carpenter who suddenly has awesome power tools.”
Williams built a fully functional system running on AWS in 48 hours, a task he says would normally take at least three weeks. He didn’t just write code; he learned a new graph database (AWS Neptune) on the fly, delivering clean, modular, and scalable output.
Claude Code had problems, too, though. Williams warned that every hour or so, the coding assistant compressed its conversation context, and things broke. “I learnt to wrap up a ‘milestone,’ update the README, and start a new conversation afresh before compaction occurs,” he wrote on LinkedIn.
Williams also made the now-classic mistake of asking Claude to “clean up” code directories, and watched it wipe out important features, working code, and data in one stroke. “I learnt the hard way to back up code every hour or so manually, so I could go back to previous versions when things went awry,” he explained.
Occasionally, Claude Code would add random extra or duplicative features, so he needed to inspect the code holistically every hour or so to make sure his projects were headed in the right direction.
Still, Williams believes Claude Code is a true accelerator for those who already know how to code. For junior devs or non-coders? Not yet.
He estimates Claude Code can already take on 50% of the workload for a seasoned engineer, and that might top out at roughly 75%, a productivity jump with serious implications.
Bottom line: For experienced builders, Claude Code is here, and it’s powerful. Just don’t forget to back up your work!
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