How does AI affect your current career / job?

[bazera]

Hey,

I'm working as a software developer (mostly web) for 8-9 years now, and for the last couple years, the industry is being reshaped in front of my eyes due to AI. At the moment, it's like, if you don't use some sort of AI agent in your workflow, you're getting behind, and you feel that each month. 

Managers push us to use AI more and more, and expect productivity gains due to it, and for the last 2-3 months, AI agents have improved to such a degree that me and most developers around me don't actually type code manually, the process has morphed into talking with an agent, or multiple agents at once, and basically orchestrating them, reviewing code, making sure they do the job correctly, and if an agent isn't able to do something, then we switch back to an old school way and do things manually.

These agents affected the industry so much that many of us have anxiety over losing our jobs in the long term. That's why now I'm switching more and more into roles and projects that require more architectural and big-picture thinking skills. If not at the current job, I try to advance those skills with my own toy projects in my free time.

So, I was wondering if any of you guys experience similar changes due to AI in your induestries. Would be interesting to hear your thoughts.

Edited Saturday at 06:10 AM by bazera

[Oppositionless]

The rise of AI led me first to despair bc I was going to school for CS (with a specialization) in web dev. But I think it ended up being a good thing because now I have to get creative. I'm gonna get a life coaching certification and build that business. My current job is building servers.

Edited Saturday at 04:42 PM by Oppositionless

[Tistepiste]

I am a Data Scientist with a masters in AI

To be honest it makes my job so much easier..
These tools are really a great assistent in code building and understanding new concepts.

Before that I had to browse / ask questions on stackoverflow, read documentations, invent my own logic for very specific behaviours.

Now I can use these tools to do the heavy lifting for me.

However, one must stay on high alert, since these chatbots are fully stupid fully confidently and make you think they make sense while theyre inventing complete new physics

[bazera]

6 hours ago, Oppositionless said:

The rise of AI led me first to despair bc I was going to school for CS (with a specialization) in web dev. But I think it ended up being a good thing because now I have to get creative. I'm gonna get a life coaching certification and build that business. My current job is building servers.

@Oppositionless So you gave up on the idea of buidling a career around web dev?

[bazera]

3 hours ago, Tistepiste said:

I am a Data Scientist with a masters in AI

To be honest it makes my job so much easier..
These tools are really a great assistent in code building and understanding new concepts.

Before that I had to browse / ask questions on stackoverflow, read documentations, invent my own logic for very specific behaviours.

Now I can use these tools to do the heavy lifting for me.

However, one must stay on high alert, since these chatbots are fully stupid fully confidently and make you think they make sense while theyre inventing complete new physics

@Tistepiste Yes for sure, same for me, I have a huge productivity boost, I hated doing boilerplace stuff, and now I'm excited to build my own projects in weeks instead of months. 

And it's huge when it comes to learning and understanding. It's so much easier now. 

[Oppositionless]

44 minutes ago, bazera said:

@Oppositionless So you gave up on the idea of buidling a career around web dev?

No not quite. I still do some programming on my own, but I just am painfully aware that the junior developer positions have dried up. Also it just feels slightly dis-empowering to rely on AI, but it feels like it's impossible to keep up without it since everyone else is doing it, as at your job. But a lot of the fun of programming has gone way down for me, tbh. 

[bazera]

@Oppositionless

Quote

But a lot of the fun of programming has gone way down for me, tbh. 

Yes same for me. It's been much more fun to code like 10 years ago then it's now. 

The job turned into reviewing code that claude models generate and sometimes debugging manually because llm can't do it. 

But it is what it is, we've to somehow adjust and fit the new standard. Gotta keep that paycheck coming.

My sister also wanted to learn coding but she lost all motivation and since there are no more junior developer jobs, I can't blame her. 

But if we don't have juniors, how are we gonna have more seniors after some years go by? 

[Oppositionless]

22 hours ago, bazera said:

@Oppositionless

But if we don't have juniors, how are we gonna have more seniors after some years go by? 

Capitalists don't care about the future 

[PolyPeter]

On 2/28/2026 at 3:08 AM, bazera said:

So, I was wondering if any of you guys experience similar changes due to AI in your induestries. Would be interesting to hear your thoughts.

Definitely!! 

Nowadays I push myself to write some code every now and then, but mainly, I've been achieveing a lot more work done using multiple agents.

I initiallly hesitated to pay $20/month for a claude account, but now I have many accounts due to high use.

Somedays I'm talking to 3 agents at a time, and it feels like my job as a programmer changed to ai-agents-evil-lord 

and I use the word evil-lord, because it feels like that! sometimes being a little evil to the bots make them understand the work.

 

Overall, it has been an intense ride, and for my case, it led me to create new projects outside my main job, which, actually is even more work than before, but I enjoy the things I build, and also understand them enough to be able to go and fix things when needed, I don't relly 100% on AI, but it made at least 100% improvement on my output.

Edited 16 hours ago by PolyPeter

[PolyPeter]

On 2/28/2026 at 8:33 PM, Oppositionless said:

junior developer positions have dried up.

might worth the watch!

[bazera]

Quote

sometimes being a little evil to the bots make them understand the work.

Just keep in mind, when they conquer us they won't remember that fondly, lol.

Quote

Overall, it has been an intense ride, and for my case, it led me to create new projects outside my main job, which, actually is even more work than before, but I enjoy the things I build, and also understand them enough to be able to go and fix things when needed, I don't relly 100% on AI, but it made at least 100% improvement on my output

 

@PolyPeter Yes same for me, definitelty. I'm starting more projects on my own and learning much more things much faster and easier than before AI.

I'm just concerned a bit that I'll lose that pure programming skill over time. I try to do leetcode weekly to keep it sharp. And also dive deeper into technologies and languages itself. Like building an interpreter from scratch, or building a clone of sqlite, stuff like that, that forces you to understand things beyond surface level. I think that's important, especially now.

[bazera]

44 minutes ago, PolyPeter said:

might worth the watch!

@PolyPeter Yup I've seen it. Good stuff. But still, most of that will be senior positions though.

[PolyPeter]

2 hours ago, bazera said:

I think that's important, especially now.

Yup! the human brain is very lazy

Writing code by hand, but most importantly thinking about the solution on your own, and actually reviewing the code, is crucial for truly getting the most out of using AI. 

I also ask the bot about different possible implementations. usually the first one is shit.

[PolyPeter]

3 hours ago, bazera said:

@PolyPeter Yup I've seen it. Good stuff. But still, most of that will be senior positions though.

Yes, but as you said, eventually there will be need for new people. Seniors will grow old, and new talent will be AI-assisted native, imo..

[bazera]

8 minutes ago, PolyPeter said:

Writing code by hand, but most importantly thinking about the solution on your own, and actually reviewing the code, is crucial for truly getting the most out of using AI

That's when years of experience come in handy. That's why senior engineers are best users of those tools nowadays. 

But again, if all the new people vibe-code their way through first years of their careers, I don't know what good will come of that.

We'll see. 

At the moment I see a need for deepening fundamental knowledge and caring about understanding the output of AI plus working on some projects without using LLM's (for solutons, I think it's okay to use for boilerplate even in study projects), just for deepening the knowledge.

[PolyPeter]

8 minutes ago, bazera said:

I don't know what good will come of that.

Yeah me neither, in any case, getting the foundations right is important.

Good luck with your leetcode!

 

On the sidenote, I'm building an iOS app for people who wanna practice for programming interviews, particularly for iOS roles (yes, kind of recursive)

Apple is reviewing my app and soon I'll be able to publish it to the store, if it is of your interest, I'll let you know when its online!

[bazera]

@PolyPeter

Quote

Apple is reviewing my app and soon I'll be able to publish it to the store, if it is of your interest, I'll let you know when its online!

I'm using Android, but still, drop it in my PM when it's approved.

[bazera]

The Next Two Years of Software Engineering:

https://addyosmani.com/blog/next-two-years/

This was a good read

Quote

“The best software engineers won’t be the fastest coders, but those who know when to distrust AI.”

 

Edited 3 hours ago by bazera

[Yimpa]