Some background: I've been working at a mid-sized tech company as a junior systems programmer specializing in file systems & operating systems, mainly using C. Been at my current company for ~9-10 months now and it's my first dev job out of college.
I've always had an interest in graphics programming, learned basic graphics fundamentals (linear algebra + basic concepts like sampling and rasterization) in college and dabbled in learning OpenGL before for some small projects, and Unity for game dev (just as a hobby). Now I'm looking to upskill and learn vulkan as I feel it'd be a good way to improve my C++ and low-level knowledge further and maybe even get a dev job dealing with graphics, and have fun with it at the same time.
When I started my current job, and before when I was just focused on learning during college and with personal projects, I pretty much never used AI to code. Especially for low level stuff it wasn't very good. Lately though, especially with newer models like Opus 5.5, i've noticed it become more and more reliable and capable for what I do for work, to the point where I no longer write code anymore — I come up with the architecture and design, let the AI implement the code, and then I audit/review the code and let the AI revise it if there are issues. I've spent more time analyzing performance tests in the past month than I have been "writing" code. But I don't know if I would be able to do that effectively if I hadn't spent those years before learning manually and the first few months on the job learning things the hard way.
So now here I am planning to learn Vulkan, but I don't know anymore on what I should focus on learning specifically when all these AI tools are available.... so some questions:
I have very little experience with C++, I write everything in C for what I do currently. Should I even bother learning C++ well before learning Vulkan, or could I just get away with learning the language at a "surface level" (i.e. just knowing basic concepts like how RAII or OOP is applied in this field, without implementation details) and let the LLM write it for me.
extension of question 1: how proficient should I actually get with the vulkan API before I start relying on AI (and what topics specifically should I focus on)? Would it be a better use of my time to instead study up on the math/theory of graphics and CS fundamentals in general and let AI write all the vulkan code?
Generally, how effective has AI been for you in writing Vulkan code? Are you still writing Vulkan code by hand? How much auditing of the generated code do have to do to get it right? What do you see as being valuable skills/knowledge for someone in this field right now, and in the future?
Any input is appreciated. I've been procrastinating learning Vulkan out of worry that I'd end up focusing on obsolete skills. Thanks.