Developers are in the middle of an existential crisis, as the craft we’ve devoted ourselves to has devalued rapidly.
As one dev on Hacker News puts it:
New software releases? Who cares. Learning new CS concepts? Whatever. Studying for the next interview? Job probably won’t even exist in a year. Working on that side project? No one will care because it’s just another addition to the mountain of slop, and the guy bagging your groceries can do it. Everything is done and cooked with AI now.
It’s exactly like that feeling once you enable cheats in a game; sure you can do anything, but everything is meaningless now. Our entire purpose and joy in life has been taken from us.
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I sometimes feel this way, too. It’s natural. Unfortunately, it’s not an empowering mindset. It positions us as victims being crushed under a technological wave, rather than leaders riding it.
So here are a few things that can counteract this mentality:
Recognize that it was never ours to begin with. Nothing was “taken from us.” Just because we know how to code by hand doesn’t mean we’re entitled to an infinite stream of validation. We learned the skill of coding by hand and were compensated for it handsomely because it was scarce. Now that this is no longer the case, we’ll have to learn new skills.
Writing code by hand was never the point. The point is helping people. It’s not about us; it’s about them.
Founder Patrick O’Shaughnessy explains in an interview how surrendering to helping others helped him find purpose during a time of seeking. I love the simplicity of it. It’s simple yet flexible enough to adapt to the rapid changes AI is ushering in.
I’ve been considering what’s next after my recent launch. It’s scary to try to come up with an answer, but asking questions that embody the spirit of helpfulness is much easier. Here are a few that I like:
Who can I help the most?
Who are the easiest people for me to help?
What skills of mine are the most useful to them?
What skills do I need to learn to be more helpful?
Answering these will lead to a short list of things to do: services to offer, products to create, things to learn, places to go. Then you can narrow the scope and ask again.
Who can I help the most this week?
Who are the easiest people for me to help this week?
What skills of mine are the most useful to them this week?
What skills do I need to learn to be more helpful this week?
The hard part, of course, is taking action, validating assumptions, and iterating based on feedback. But doing this has helped me flip the mindset from “I’m cooked” to “I think I could still be helpful.”
That’s a good place to start.
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DHH: How to Build a Profitable Company Without Losing Control (youtube.com)