LLMs have sucked all of the joy out of software engineering for me, and I've been doing it for 12 years.
As others have pointed out, I'm looking at a career shift now. I'm essentially burning out on doing the whole LLM-assisted coding stuff while I still can, earning money on contracts, and then going to step away from the field. I'm lucky that I'm in a position to do so, but I really don't know what the rest of my career looks like.
18 years here (more if I can count my non professional years). Agreed, coding isn't as much fun as it used to be but AI has only increased my enthusiasm for tech. Its a lot more easier to learn and understand new stuff, build things (especially personal tools) and tinker in any programming language.
For me, it was the craft that was fun, less the building. It was nice to have a really good result that customers were happy about, that other engineers were happy about, but it was also nice to have such intimate knowledge of a codebase because I and my team built it.
I miss that level of mastery. I feel that in the LLM-assisted coding age, that's now gone. You can read every section of code that an LLM generates, but there's no comparison to writing it by hand to me in terms of really internalizing and mastering a codebase.
What's stopping you from writing code by hand even today? I mainly use LLMs for researching and trying possible paths forward, but usually implement the suggested solution myself specifically so that I fully understand the code (unless it's a one-liner or so, then I let the LLM paste it in).
Because I can't justify it. While I do love the craft, and I can do this, I work with other people and I can't convince other people to not use LLMs to do their daily work. So, while I'll be writing things by hand and using the LLM to suggest which way to go, they'll be submitting PR after PR of AI-generated code, which takes much more of my time to review.
Everyone else is using LLMs to assist their development, which makes it a lot harder to work without them, especially in just building enterprise apps. It doesn't feel like I'm creating something anymore. Rather, it feels like a fuzzy amalgamation of all developers in the training data are. Working with LLMs sometimes feels like information overload. When I see so much code scrolling past as the agent makes its changes, this can be exhausting. Reading this massive volume of code is exhausting. I don't like that the new "power tools" of software engineering mean that my career, our career, is now monetizable. I liked feeling like a craftsman, and that is lost.
I’m curious if you’ve tried using these tools the other way.
Whenever I’ve done experimenting I found the tab completion annoying and the agent got so much wrong I was basically fighting it at every step, but when I went back to VS Code and treated LM as a super fast inline stackoverflow—give me an example, look up this API, find my dumb syntax error—I could use it to support deep work/staying in the zone rather than supplant it, and the resulting code isn’t slop because I wrote it.
It seems to me a lot of developers are operating this way instead, treating the machine as an electric bicycle for lots of little boosts rather than FSD.
I have, and it's entirely my own fault, but the way my brain works is I can't justify doing something slower than I possibly could with other tools. I'm not one to completely give in to vibe coding. I do still very manually drive the LLM when I work, but I don't even feel like learning tech anymore.
I can't help but ask myself, what's the point when learning another programming language, or another library, or another paradigm, when a lot of this information and knowledge is encoded in the model weights of the LLM
No the OP, but I feel like using LLMs to code is much more like management than coding. And the "person" you're managing is a not very smart coder with severe memory issues.
My guess is because it’s turning development into a Red Queen’s Race [0] where everyone has to run faster and faster just to stay in the same place. If everyone else is using LLMs, how can you stay competitive without using them?
Same for me... fortunately, I'm reaching the end of my career anyway. But let see how it goes. LLMs are a very recent development so it's too soon to take such drastic decisions.
On the positive side, I have some old personal projects I couldn't complete because it was too much work for me alone. I think LLMs will help for menial tasks, while I can still work on improving the design and adding features.
What are you looking of shifting to? I’ve thought about an actual engineering discipline, but going through the schooling just seems too big of a thing.
Honestly? I'm not sure. I've looked at a few different paths.
I'm lucky to live in the Research Triangle area of the United States, so I've got really good options for schooling around me. My sister graduated with an aerospace engineering degree, and I've always been interested in space. Thinking about hardware as a possible path as well.
But in a complete twist, I've also always wanted to be an educator. A high school math or computer science teacher would fit me well. I remember a lot of my male teachers very fondly in terms of the impact they had on my life, and I'd love to give that back.
Just wanted to say I've felt very similarly recently. Honestly feels like we need a place to continue to discuss post-tech career paths for mid-career engineers.
I've been considering becoming an electrician but it is also quite a career shift.
Restarting a career seems so hard. Looking at engineering programs and having to spend thousands just doesn’t sit well. I suspect many of us will just keep doing “software” until they won’t pay us anymore.
Yes and no, I'm looking for something that's deeply people-oriented now. I mentioned it in a different comment, being a teacher. Also thinking about being a nurse. My wife was a nurse, maybe we could work together.
As others have pointed out, I'm looking at a career shift now. I'm essentially burning out on doing the whole LLM-assisted coding stuff while I still can, earning money on contracts, and then going to step away from the field. I'm lucky that I'm in a position to do so, but I really don't know what the rest of my career looks like.