Post #2391509

Unfortunately I think this frustration is part and parcel to the tech industry. Thats why I moved myself into trades. Becoming a Union Electrician might not be a bad plan to start on while you have the resources to reskill. There is a lot of overlap in both skills and pay potential... I know that's not an answer for everybody, nor the answer you were probably hoping for, but I am a handyman now instead of working in tech (though I did fix one of my clients computers the other day, lol) and I make a similar amount of money, I enjoy what I do a lot more and I don't have a boss asking me to find a way to automate my own position (which is what I saw happening a lot when I worked in tech). My friends and colleagues in tech always thought they were beyond reproach and didn't need unions because the company they work for valued them too much. I like to remind them of what they used to say now that a lot of them are being laid off. I imagine I will have a lot more competition for handyman jobs going forward with all the people I know from tech that are losing their jobs right now. Before AI it was just regular automation... But whatever the new thing is, it is always an attempt to make programmers as well as all workers in the chain worth less and programmers willingly take on the challenge, because... Well I don't think tech minded people always have a great capacity for true critical thinking skills. I suspect what you are noticing in your colleagues using AI and becoming worse at solving problems was always there under the surface. People don't like to dig deeper than what their boss is asking them to do. Most people don't even care why. The why always frustrated me in that industry. I think there was a time where new technology felt like unlocking a new level in life. Things changed a lot when we all got GPS built into our phones. That was a moment we can all look to and say our lives improved dramatically, we never had to be lost again (even that comes at the price of spontaneous discovery in meat space). Now unless it's something tangential to the fediverse I am just worried about how this, "innovation," is going to make my life worse. AI feels like it's gotta be the final boss. Right? I think all of the for-profit parts of the tech industry are fully under the spell and will be for the foreseeable future. Perhaps you could find a paid position in open-source tech, though it seems very competitive and likely to pay a lot less. I am sorry this is happening. It sounds really, really frustrating as somebody who has become disenchanted with working in tech themselves.