Good write-up. I don't disagree with any of his points, but does anybody here have practical suggestions on how to move forward and think about one's career? I've been a frontend (with a little full stack) for a few years now, and much of the modern landscape concerns me, specifically with how I should be positioning myself.

I hear vague suggestions like "get better at the business domain" and other things like that. I'm not discounting any of that, but what does this actually mean or look like in your day-to-day life? I'm working at a mid-sized company right now. I use Cursor and some other tools, but I can't help but wonder if I'm still falling behind or doing something wrong.

Does anybody have any thoughts or suggestions on this? The landscape and horizon just seems so foggy to me right now.

Author here, thanks for your kind words!

I think it's about looking at what you're building and proactively suggesting/prototyping what else could be useful for the business. This does get tricky in large corps where things are often quite siloed, but can you think "one step ahead" of the product requirements and build that as well?

I think regardless if you build it, it's a good exercise to run on any project - what would you think to build next, and what does the business actually want. If you are getting closer on those requests in your head then I think it's a positive sign you are understanding the domain.

Blind leading the blind, but my thinking is this:

1. Use the tools to their fullest extend, push boundaries and figure out what works and what doesn't

2. Be more than your tools

As long as you + LLM is significantly more valuable than just an LLM, you'll be employed. I don't know how "practical" this advice is, because it's basically what you're already doing, but it's how I'm thinking about it.

Don't chase specific technologies, especially not ones driven by for-profit companies. Chase ideas, become great in one slice of the industry, and the very least you can always fall back on that. Once established within a domain, you can always try to branch out, and feel a lot more comfortable doing so.

Ultimately, software is for doing something, and that something can be a whole range of things. If you become really good at just a slice of that, things get a lot easier regardless of the general state of the industry.

Its always been foggy. Even without AI, you were always at risk of having your field disrupted by some tech you didn't see coming.

AI will probably replace the bottom ~30-70%(depends who you ask) of dev jobs. Dont get caught in the dead zone when the bottom falls out.

Exactly how we'll train good devs in the future, if we don't give them a financially stable environment environment to learn in while they're bad, is an open question.

My suggestion would be to move to a higher level of abstraction, change the way which you view the system.

Maybe becoming full stack? Maybe understanding the industry a little deeper? Maybe analyzing your company's competitors better? That would increase your value for the business (a bit of overlap with product management though). Assuming you can now deliver the expected tech part more easily, that's what I'd do.

As for me, I've moved to a permanent product management position.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46197349

Great question, hard to quickly answer.

My .02$. Show you can tackle harder problems. That includes knowing which problems matter. That happens with learning a "domain", versus just learning a tool (e.g. web development) in a domain.

Change is scary, but thats because most aren't willing to change. Part of the "scare" is the fear of lost investment (e.g. pick wrong major or career). I can appreciate that, but with a little flexibility, that investment can be repurposed quicker today that in pre-2022 thanks to AI.

AI is just another tool, treat it like a partner not a replacement. That can also include learning a domain. Ask AI how a given process works, its history, regulations, etc. Go confirm what it says. Have it break it down. We now can learn faster than ever before. Trust but verify.

You are using Cursor, that shows a willingness to try new things. Now try to move faster than before, go deeper into the challenges. That is always going to be valued.

> but wonder if I'm still falling behind or doing something wrong.

This is normal with all that is going on in the industry and the AI/ML hype. But, one should not allow that to lead to "analysis paralysis".

> specifically with how I should be positioning myself. ... Does anybody have any thoughts or suggestions on this?

You have a stable job; hence your entire focus (for now) should be to "grow" in your job/organization. This means taking more responsibilities both technical/non-technical and demonstrating your long-term commitment to management. On the technical side, start with "full stack development" both frontend and backend so you can contribute end-to-end to the entire product line. Learn/Use all available tools (AI and otherwise) to demonstrate independent initiative. Step up for any tasks which might not have a owner (eg. CI/CD etc.). Keep your boss/higher-ups informed so as to maintain visibility throughout the organization. Learn more about the problem domain, interact more with Marketing/Sales so as to become the liaison between Engineering and rest of the organization/clients.

Generally, all higher management look for initiative and independent drive so that they can delegate work with the assurance that it will be taken care of and that is what you need to provide.

Also blind leading the blind here but I see two paths.

1) Specialize in product engineering, which means taking on more business responsibility. Maybe it means building your own products, or maybe it means trying to get yourself in a more customer-facing or managerial role? Im not very sure. Probably do this if you think AI will be replacing most programmers.

2) Specialize in hard programming problems that AI can't do. Frontend is probably most at risk, low level systems programming least at risk. Learn Rust or C/C++, or maybe backend (C#\Java\Go) if you don't want to transition all the way to low level systems stuff.

That being said I don't think AI is really going to replace us anytime soon.

Sheep farming sounds nice. Or making wooden furniture. Something physical.

Nobody knows the answer.

Answers I see are typically "be a product manager" or "start your own business" which obviously 95% of developers can't/don't want to do.