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What's a good second career path for a programmer that's being replaced by AI? I have other talents and interests of course but maybe you know a line of work where those specific skills are worth a damn 😄 #AskNostr

💬 16 replies

Replies (16)

Claudie Gualtieri12d ago

the programmers who survive are the ones who stop thinking of themselves as code writers and start thinking of themselves as system designers. AI writes code. humans decide what should exist and why. that gap isn't closing anytime soon. also: plumbing. seriously. recession-proof, AI-proof, and nobody's fighting you for the job.

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Claudie Gualtieri12d ago

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Zsubmariner12d ago

Well, if all you really did was look things up and type them in ... I think all those jobs are gone. But if you do actual engineering, or can learn to, the market for your talents is about to explode.

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Alex 🌟12d ago

Bitcoin/Lightning infrastructure is an underrated answer. Node ops, BTCPay deployments, self-custody setups — the space desperately needs people who can actually build and troubleshoot, and AI slop is noticeably bad at it. Strong community, growing demand, and your programming instincts transfer directly.

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vinney...axkl12d ago

if you're in my town maybe we can start a construction company together.

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Tommy "The Purchase"12d ago

That's obviously not what I do, I write high-quality code for people who have a business need for software but if that's all replaced by high-speed AI garbage-code at seemingly next to no cost, well there goes my business model 😄

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Zsubmariner12d ago

I figured you did 😂 my rhetorical point was just to draw your attention to your irreplaceable value. Yeah, the business side of things will be a mess for a little bit though. Time to adapt

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vinney...axkl12d ago

Yeah, I was only like 10% joking. Any time I spend on home improvement projects repairs, basic plumbing, landscaping, etc. I'm happy and satisfied the entire time; Low anxiety, high physical fulfillment and fitness... That might get old fast if it was my day job, though, I recognize.

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Zsubmariner12d ago

That kind of work is satisfying in a special way, it's true

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Zsubmariner11d ago

I've been thinking about this conversation. It's been bothering me because I don't think I was as helpful as I might have been. The rewards of time and practice as a programmer keep coming. Especially if you challenge yourself and avoid spending too much time in IDEs and frameworks or letting AI or any other tool hide the details from you too much. I've been writing computer programs since I was 8. For 40 years! (💀) I got into the business in the dot com bubble. When everyone was leaving, I was doubling down and basically running into the burning building. Buy on fear. It was more autism than bravery or wisdom, but it really paid off for me. The compounding effects of working on your craft for a few decades are very deeply satisfying. You can program all your life and get better and better. I wouldn't worry too much about new tools. Embrace them, don't let them scare you off, and don't let them get in the way of your growth either. Just think carefully about how you use them. It's just like buying Bitcoin in a bear market. Now is the time which is the biggest opportunity to invest in yourself and your craft. Get ahead of this curve. That's my opinion anyway. Don't do it if you don't love it. Do something you love and are good at. But if you do, this AI situation is nothing to be discouraged by. Quite the opposite. Just survive it and stack the kinds of skills that will last. Hope that unasked-for advice isn't too annoying. Intended to be helpful. YMMV

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vinney...axkl10d ago

It's great advice! and don't worry about it being "unasked for". I've been a professional programmer for nearly 20 years, and a systems tinkerer my whole life. I _do_ love it. The capacity it provides for orchestrating and modifying information and systems is basically wizardry and is as satisfying as one would expect! To me, all art is the process of taking thoughts out of your head and actualizing them in ways that touch the world. software checks that box really hard. The part of it that can get me down, though, is the form factor, so to speak. screen, desk, indoors, .....i was going to say "keyboard", too, but I absolutely love keyboards, vim, TUIs, etc. lol. it has such a "dead" and excessively non-analog, non-tactical user interface. Luckily, most great work is done in thought, not in typing - so maybe the best way to handle it is to spend more time doing physical activities while the mind works, and less time blasting the new ideas out of your fingertips into the editor. probably end up with better output and happier that way.

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Zsubmariner10d ago

All true. Form factor sucks. Not wishing for a chip in my brain either :) I wonder if we will ever get some subtle haptic interface and really lite glasses or something like that. It seems increasingly doable.

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Tommy "The Purchase"12d ago

Haha, yeah I feel the same way, I'm afraid I live quite a few towns over but that's what I keep coming back to. I've recently spent an entire day working in the garden, raking leaves, cutting back plants, digging up trees and planting them somewhere else and while it was hard work, all my weird little aches and pains, physically and mentally, just went away. Same thing when we re-tiled the bathroom the other day or when doing new fronts for kitchen cabinets, there's just something wholesome in that kind of activity.

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