[sd9]

AI agents have made me far more productive, but the work now feels like drudgery. The most intellectually stimulating parts of the job were automated away first, and I am getting increasingly sick of typing into a chat bot all day.

I got into software engineering because I was always fascinated by getting computers to do stuff, and I really enjoyed the manual task of programming. It's been a dream to earn a living doing something I would do in my spare time. I was pretty good at it too.

I'm not having fun any more, so I've decided to leave the field and become a teacher. I won't earn nearly as much money but I expect to feel more fulfilled, and I hope I can help make a difference to some young people.

I've had an extraordinarily privileged career, and many people never get the luxury of enjoying their work at all. But I'd rather try to enjoy what I do day to day than persist in something that's lost its spark.

[zeroonetwothree]

I am still coding interesting and complex stuff manually. I just make the AI do the boring stuff like data processing scripts or setting up tests. So it works kind of well for me

[sd9]

That's what I'd like to do in my spare time. My job has become intolerant of that slow pace though now they've drunk the kool aid. I work at a startup and we're expected to produce game changing new features every day.

[r_lee]

I'm curious, how do you think people around you there are taking it? I just can't help but feel like that is unsustainable and everyone is just going to burn out

[coldpie]

I've had the same experience. I used to enjoy doing software dev, I was good at my job and liked it and did good work. Then the AI push happened and now whenever I'm typing code I think "I wonder if AI could do this for me" except using AI is infantilizing and boring and I don't want to do it. So I feel bad if I use it and I feel bad if I don't use it. So mostly I go post on HN or something instead of working and my productivity has tanked in the last year. Luckily I'm nearer the end of my career than the beginning so it won't be a big financial impact to me when I finally leave the industry, hopefully later this year.