I mean, I spent years learning to code in school and at home, but never managed to get a job doing it, so I just do what I can in my spare time, and LLMs help me feel like I haven't completely fallen off. I can still hack together cool stuff and keep learning.

I actually meant it as a good thing! Our industry plays very loose with terms like "developer" and "engineer". We never really defined them well and its always felt more like gate keeping.

IMO if someone uses what tools they have, whether thats an LLM or vim, and is able to ship software they're a developer in my book.