AI Made Me Hate My Job… Then I Found New Joy

A few weeks ago, we had a regular company meeting. Nothing dramatic, until my boss said: “We should use way more AI for software development. We need to speed up.” It makes sense. I get it. Still, I felt this heavy drop in my stomach. I was afraid that AI would replace the part of me that loved this job. Because I absolutely love to write the code myself! I love the struggles, thinking the solution through, finding all the places I have to consider, and then, at the end, feeling like Einstein himself when it’s finally working. Also, AI does so many stupid things: It forgets to update related files. It “helpfully” invents patterns inconsistent with the codebase. It tries to complete the task, but it doesn’t realize when the task itself doesn’t make sense. It writes plausible tests that assert the wrong behavior. The ways AI can mess up are infinite! People Don’t Pay for Code. They Pay for Outcomes. And yet… on a good day, it saves me hours, and honestly, people do not pay me for being s