Year-Long Parental Leave Leaves Portland Engineer 12 Months Behind in AI Coding Tools

A software engineer at a Portland automotive technology firm who took parental leave in mid-2024 returned to discover AI code generation had become standard practice across her workplace—a shift that occurred within twelve months. The compression of adoption timelines creates a specific reentry hazard for professionals stepping away during critical technology transitions, one that extends beyond tool familiarity to encompass new prompt engineering and code review methodologies.