Technology

If your company sucked before this, it sucks 80x as much now.

I switched companies this year, and there's a big difference between working for a company that is shrinking and one that is growing right now.

I'm fine with the work. I use AI to help make some bricks, but I still build and design the tower.

I feel like I really earn my paycheck by needing to interact with clueless people/managers.

When it comes to my actual core work and getting things done, I'm still content. Even with the pressure to "use AI", it's usefulness is limited enough in my specific niche that I actually still do most of it. There are a couple of more mainstream components that it did accelerate, but the core of my job it kind of just isn't good at. I still have authority over it and how it is done, and I can keep it pretty solid.

However the phenonomenon of people telling me how I should be doing my work who know absolutely zero about my work is exhausting. Someone who has never written code or used any version control, even with AI for some reason is telling me I should stop using git because it isn't AI friendly because he read some article and he thinks it sounds smart to say it. Someone telling me they vibed up a solution for something and sent it out to our customers and then I get stuck trying to repair the customer relationship when it is crap, and expectations are that I should be able to fix it real quick because "the AI did all the hard stuff already". So much harder fixing slop from someone that vibed without knowing than starting from scratch, but no one believes it because it almost looks right and how far off can it really be of it looks that right?

Most days I avoid that and I do feel like it's getting better as the novelty wears off and these people with no stake in things are getting bored of slopping up stuff they find out they don't actually care about, so it is fine.

However, I would absolutely suggest not trying to get into this industry. It is an absolute shit show to onboard into now. I am so glad now that my kid had zero interest in this stuff, saved them a bunch of disappointment.

Even in this day and age, when furniture is being mass-produced, there is still a niche for those who create furniture by hand, without the use of assembly lines and CNC.

The same goes for software development.

The downside is that you need to become the creative, the “ideas man” that can come up with that bespoke solution that AI can never truly provide. And you likely have to do it on your own, or if you are lucky, in a small company whose entire identity relies on bespoke solutions and high-quality, high-cost work.

The vast majority of software developers will never be able to make that jump, just like how hundreds of thousands of furniture-makers in the early 20th century, across North America, were also unable to make that jump. Those turning out bespoke furniture today represent an almost-unmeasurable rounding error compared to the same numbers of craftsman a century ago.

But they still exist. They can still make a living. And so can software developers with the right skills and attitudes.

I was a developer and then manager for 16 years before I saw what the industry was becoming and left, almost a year ago now.

I used to be excited about the work I was doing, solving tough problems and working/managing great people.

Unfortunately, like every company, we had mass layoffs and AI tooling mandated.

My very last year there was me just depressed while trying to keep morale up for the team I was left with (which is almost impossible if you can't support the company).

The good news is, after I left I've made a horizontal shift to starting my own Indie game company. Obviously that has tons of risks and it's own problems, but it's been a breath of fresh air to work how I want to work, with a hope I can build a company and run it how I want to (which is not forcing AI tooling down everyone's throats).

I suspect I'm not the only engineer who's left to set up their own business over the past year, on the premise they want to start something small, with a healthy culture that they can hire engineers into.

I appreciate it's not much of a lifeline, but over time I reckon you'll see a correction with smaller companies starting up, who do engineering right and can set disruptive cultures that draw all the exceptional and clever engineers to come work with them.

I've just seen a draft PR with 60k lines added.

No, I'm not OK.

And I'll definitely go: TL;DR , I refuse to take any responsibilities about this.

If I could make 70% as much in a different field, I would have switched by now.

I no longer enjoy my field as a profession. There is no "solving" anything anymore, it's just prompting a bot and building tools that make it better and better at replacing me. But the reality is, without pursuing a masters in a different field, this is the most money I can make for the lowest amount of work. The field is dying and in the mean time we're taking home standard salaries.

Personally I'm pursuing a fintech specialty since IMO specializing is our last hope to survive the AI destruction. But I don't enjoy it.

Really?

Because nearly each time I point out that software has been getting so bad that I legitimately can't go more than 1 day without wild bugs in everyday software that was fine 6 years ago, I'm surrounded by 17 AI bros screeching about how "umm actually I'm way more productive and AI has found 6,500 issues in this code and that's great!"

Yea what's not great is when they use AI to "patch" the vulnerabilities.

You ever try to go back in basically any industry and figure out what the fuck the last person at a job site did?

Now imagine that, except instead of intuitively being able to figure some things out because human thought is at least a base to start from, you have no fucking clue what the AI was thinking.

AI is also a massive shortcut that tugs your dick anytime you use it.

Humans can't be trusted to not optimize every little thing, and AI is taking advantage of that.

I genuinely pine for a time when it was hand coded and I'm tired of pretending this is better

I'd say tech workers in general are not doing okay. I quit my sysadmin job 3 years ago and have been desperately trying to switch careers.

I considered killing myself last night. I self-harmed for the first time in many years. My company advertised remote work. I asked if I could move far away from Tokyo and sure, no problem. I got told if RTO, then it would be close and new people only. I got permission to run a side job doing a small farm. Sure no problem.

I've been in this industry for 20+ years now.

Mandatory return to office (I live 4 hours each way). They pay transportation expenses per month at a level that wouldn't cover one day. If you're nice and apply, we MAY approve (for three months only) 2 days a week required in the office. No guarantee it will be approved. I joined a union to fight this but it's slow. They will likely still try to fire me.

I have a mortgage. I got a subsidy to move to this small town, that many in Japan provide, but it must be paid back if leaving within 5 years. I also am a registered farmer with farm land which means I legally have to maintain it properly.

Yesterday, they said no more side job is allowed. So I'm not allowed to sell anything I grow anymore, have to close my self-proprietorship, and have to close my company (which has tax impacts on me because now nothing counts as expenses and I lose my ability to do special tax forms). They apparently want food to rot. They want me to rot. The farm was not even yet at a point to make me money. They falsely claimed I got subsidies for farming (I did not and do not) and that it's no longer just selling extra produce (it still is) and is a full-scale farming operation (it is not). My sales were like 10k yen last year and maybe will get to that this year.

My wife does not work. There are few jobs out here. No remote jobs in the US or Canada are responding and few would even allow Japan time zone even with overlap. Remote jobs for a backend engineer (primarily golang lately with very rusty Java somewhere in my brain unused for many years) are basically non-existent. I've applied for jobs in the EEA but, as a non-EEA-citizen, I can basically go fuck myself. My body is way too messed up (multiple broken bones, back issues, etc.) for any really hard manual labor.

So I lose my job, I lose my income, I lose the house, I will never get another mortgage in Japan again, there's no point to being alive. My wife's birthday is coming up, which is basically what stopped me. She'll have a better life without me and at least the house will get paid off so she can do whatever with it.

Living in an apartment in Tokyo would also violate the terms of my mortgage making me lose it (on top of losing a huge chunk of my paycheck) and would also make it impossible to keep up with farm maintenance, let alone the rest of the house and property.

I am fine for now. Just not sure I'll survive any future attacks from my company. Thanks for the kind words.

If you get the opportunity, join a union.

Capitalism. The people calling the shots and keeping the profits are not the people doing the work.

It's bad and will continue to be bad for everyone except the top layer of rich people.