Hi!
I’m Jairo, a Software Engineer at Mercado Libre.
Like every backend dev at some point, I started asking myself: “Ok… how do I actually host an app?”
Not because I wanted to become a DevOps wizard overnight (and yes, I know DevOps is way more than deploying stuff — please, DevOps friends, don’t cancel me 😅).
I just wanted to learn a bit, understand the moving parts, and stop treating infra like magic.
The problem that blocked me
I was trying to do something that sounds simple:
I have a domain, and I want a route like:
-
/api→ Cloud Run app #1 -
/worker→ Cloud Run app #2
For a lot of people this is easy. You’ll say:
“Bro, that’s just a Load Balancer.”
And I agreed… for about 3 seconds.
Then my brain went:
“OK COOL… HOW DO I DO THAT?”
And that question stayed stuck in my head while I clicked around GCP like a lost tourist.
I opened the GCloud dashboard, started pressing buttons, scanning menus, searching for something that looked like “routes”, “paths”, “domains”, “magic”… anything.
And then I saw it.
The most beautiful AI logo of my life.
Not even joking: that little icon saved my night.
AI didn’t just solve it — it gave me a shortcut (and that’s dangerous)
I explained what I wanted:
- one domain
- two routes
- two different Cloud Run services
- path-based routing
And in two minutes, the AI gave me Terraform code that would set everything up automatically.
That’s the moment where you can easily become a copy/paste developer.
And I’m not saying copy/paste is always bad — I do it too… but only when I understand what’s happening.
Because if you don’t understand the infra you’re deploying, you’re basically running random commands in production with a smile 😄
The real problem with “AI helping you code”
These days everyone talks about “how to use AI to code faster”.
But I think most of us are asking the wrong question.
Instead of:
“How can AI do this for me?”
The better question is:
“How can AI teach me how to do this?”
Because if AI makes a mistake (and it does), and you don’t know what the AI is doing… you’re not becoming a better engineer.
You’re becoming a professional prompter.
And that’s a very fragile career path.
The move that changed everything
So after reading the Terraform code, I told the AI something like:
“I don’t want you to do it for me.
Teach me how to do it inside Google’s platform.”
And boom.
It gave me a step-by-step explanation:
- what to configure first
- why each part exists
- where to click
- what each resource is doing
- how routing actually works behind the scenes
That night I didn’t just “deploy something”.
I learned something.
And that’s the difference.
Final message
AI is amazing. It can save you hours. It can unlock you when you’re blocked.
But you need to remember:
✅ You should control the AI.
Not let the AI control you.
Use it to build faster, yes…
but also use it to learn, otherwise you’ll always depend on it.
Tell AI what you want — and make it explain the “why”.
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