This is something I've been concerned about. Out of work again for the something like the 7th time this decade, I'm not sure I even care to try and get another one. Unless a place is super low key and actually tests relevant skills, even with kore experience under my belt than last time I ran that gauntlet, I believe companies are likely to be even more conservative than they used to be, which was already comical. I don't believe I'm incapable or a detractor to a team, but the pressure to try and prove it in this economy and in this timeline feel... not really worth it exactly, especially when there's likely to also be pressure from management to move faster and take less time or affordance for actually thinking about what's being done. It feels like what I'm facing is a mountain that could be double the size it used to be, and that has a summit in the middle of a forest with no view.

Working on a small, existing, established product that can gradually be improved upon while aided by LLMs if necessary seems like the best place to be. Starting something new (not that I have any legit worthwhile ideas or the resources to pursue them) seems pointless because people are shitting out poorly designed AI slop constantly and poisoning the market.

But what do I do instead? Trades programs are already waitlisted or require another 5-10 yrs to earn something worthwhile. Transitioning to anything else seems like a tenuous prospect. I fear that unless I get incredibly lucky, the last job might have been the last chance to earn a living that made any sense.

To be clear, I'm not giving AI more credit than it's due, and this article describes the reasons for that which are valid, but the perception that they're magic engineer replacers is more important than reality. At least I can hope that the housing market completely crashes or enough crap code is produced by opportunists that I can ride it out, but other than that it's a confusing time.