[nch896]

Building something real from scratch, like a small SaaS or side project, can help you learn a lot.

Using AI is not a bad thing in itself, but you should treat it as an assistant rather than a crutch. When AI gives you an answer, ask yourself "why this approach?" and evaluate the response critically from multiple angles. When you build with that mindset, you naturally develop good architecture instincts, both by understanding the AI's reasoning and by pushing back on it.

Personally I would recommend starting with a Discord bot. I started learning programming by building a discord bot with dashboard before ChatGPT existed, and looking back it was a surprisingly good way to develop architecture sense. The scope is flexible, even if it is built just for yourself, it can grow as complex as you want. You can keep adding features over time, and every new feature forces you to think about how it fits into what already exists. And that friction is where the learning actually happens.