So I’ve been meaning to write about this for ages. Cursor AI has basically saved my sanity this year, and I figured other devs might want to hear about it from someone who’s actually used it day-to-day. Not some marketing exaggeration.
I’m Suman Dey, lead dev at Roitech. Been coding professionally for about 8 years now. Tried pretty much every IDE and coding tool out there. Most are either bloated messes or “AI-powered” tools that just get in your way.
Cursor AI is different. It’s what VS Code would be if it actually understood what you’re trying to do.
The first project where it clicked
Back in July we landed this healthcare project that was a complete nightmare from day one. Client wanted a full portal with patient data management, appointment scheduling, the works. Oh, and they needed it in 6 weeks because their previous dev team bailed. And yeah, HIPAA compliance was non-negotiable.
I was extremely frustrated trying to scope this thing when I remembered reading about Cursor. Figured it was worth a try, can’t make things worse.
First task was building out the auth system. Normally takes me a full day to get rightwith all the security considerations. I typed something like “need secure auth system with password reset and 2FA for healthcare app” and Cursor generated a decent skeleton. Not perfect – had to fix some security issues and add proper error handling
– but saved me maybe 4-5 hours.
The legacy code nightmare
The real test came when the client sent over their existing codebase. Goodness. Whoever wrote it should be banned from programming forever. No comments, variables named stuff like “temp1” and “x2”, 500-line functions. The works.
Was about to tell the client we needed to rewrite from scratch when I tried using Cursor to help make sense of it. Asked it to explain what different sections were
doing. It actually figured out most of it, pointed out where data was flowing between
components, and suggested breaking up those monster functions.
Ended up refactoring instead of rewriting. Saved weeks of work.
What I use it for daily
Mostly I use it for:
- Building out boilerplate stuff. Forms, data validation, API integrations. The repetitive stuff.
- Fixing bugs. Had this weird issue where data would randomly disappear from a table component. Spent 2 hours getting nowhere. Described the bug to Cursor, it suggested checking if I was accidentally unmounting components. Turned out that was exactly the issue.
- Learning new libraries. Was implementing Stripe payments last month and wasn’t familiar with their React hooks. Instead of digging through docs for hours, I asked Cursor how to implement subscription billing and got working code in minutes.
Not perfect
Look, it’s not magic. Sometimes it gives you code that looks right but doesn’t work. It’s clueless about some newer frameworks. And it’ll occasionally get confused if your codebase structure is unconventional.
I still review everything it generates. But it’s like having a junior dev who works at superhuman speed and never gets tired.
Bottom line
Our team’s shipping stuff probably 30-40% faster now. Bugs get squashed quicker. I can focus on architecture and hard problems instead of writing repetitive CRUD operations all day.
The business folks are happy because we’re taking on more clients. I’m happy because I’m not working weekends anymore. Win-win.
If you write code for a living and haven’t tried Cursor yet, do yourself a favor. And no, they’re not paying me to say this – I’m just a dev who finally found an AI tool that actually delivers what it promises.
