I do think that there's some meta-skills involved here that are useful, in the same way that some people have good "Google-fu". Some of it is portable, some of it isn't.

I think if you orient your experimentation right you can think of some good tactics that are helpful even when you're not using AI assistance. "Making this easier for the robot" can often align with "making this easier for the humans" as well. It's a decent forcing function

Though I agree with the sentiment. People who have been doing this for less than a year convinced that they have some permanent lead over everyone.

I think a lot about my years being self taught programming. Years spent spinning my wheels. I know people who after 3 months of a coding bootcamp were much further than me after like ... 6 years of me struggling through material.