Developers and AI: Productivity, Changing Roles & Impending Loss of Purpose
I vividly remember my summer vacation of 2000 that I spent building my personal homepage. In a span of few months, what started as a drag-drop experience of customizing my homepage on Geocities quickly transitioned to actually working with hand-crafting HTML, CSS and Javascript, to finding a free host to upload the HTML pages, complete with a free sub-domain. Up until that point I had been a consumer, now a creator.
Over the next few years, I continued building webpages, assembling PCs, and eventually learning to code while pursuing my diploma and bachelor’s in computer science. Learning to code transformed my general curiosity into a passion for programming. Writing code felt like poetry, building software felt like art, and I felt like an artist.
Last 18 years, I have been deeply engrossed in all facets of delivering software products. Over the years I have transitioned to a leadership role where writing code that you are sing handedly responsible is considered a bottleneck, so I’ve found my own small ways to keep my skills sharp. I felt a sense of security knowing that I had the most consequential skill in the digital world. Writing code gave me my identity. It game me a feeling of purpose and responsibility.
