> Most companies focused entirely on doing "what everyone else is doing"
This is true of my current overlords. It slipped recently that the reason they went AI-nuts was that a competitor had announced going “AI first” and the market responded excitedly. Not because they thought it was a good idea: because the market got excited and they didn't want to get left behind.
This is quite a change as our market is financial services and I remember a time when we had to support decades old browsers (one large UK bank who I won't name here had IE6, and only IE6, on many of its user's machines until ~2017) and web servers because they refused to upgrade anything.
> "to see if Programmer Joe can be as productive as the entire team so we can fire the rest"
I'm not sure who Joe is in our outfit, but I'm certainly in the “the rest who are to be fired” set. I've been unhappy in dev & related for years so the AI revolution which I don't care for is where I'm consciously letting myself get left behind to find something else to do with my life. Haven't touched it. Was too late to claim one of the first tranche of Claude licences. And the second. Oops. Maybe I'll use AI in my next big adventure, or maybe my distaste for it all means I have a grand future waiting for me in the hospitality industry!
> Isn't it easier to get a job when you already have a job?
Yes. Or so I'm told, I've not needed to apply for a job for 26 years…
I have something possible available, though whether it still will be in five months (the earliest I'm likely to leave because of [reasons] and a two-month notice period) is a bit unknown. That five months might be ten as there are other major changes in the company (we were bought a while ago) from which the dust should have settled by Feb, and it makes sense to try to hold out that long to see if I'm still hating things with the same passion at that point.
Without that “something” there are less certain tech based options I could look at, and to be honest I really could do with a proper sabbatical style break. The mortgage is paid, I have savings, and no dependents other than the cats, so I have the luxury of considering that option. And if all else fails I've actually done the arithmetic and I can survive on minimum wage for an extended time if I need to, and hospitality work is something friends can get me into above the many others looking (that bit is less of a joke then people assume: it is seriously part of my plans D & E if I can't stick with A and B & C completely fall through).
This is true of my current overlords. It slipped recently that the reason they went AI-nuts was that a competitor had announced going “AI first” and the market responded excitedly. Not because they thought it was a good idea: because the market got excited and they didn't want to get left behind.
This is quite a change as our market is financial services and I remember a time when we had to support decades old browsers (one large UK bank who I won't name here had IE6, and only IE6, on many of its user's machines until ~2017) and web servers because they refused to upgrade anything.
> "to see if Programmer Joe can be as productive as the entire team so we can fire the rest"
I'm not sure who Joe is in our outfit, but I'm certainly in the “the rest who are to be fired” set. I've been unhappy in dev & related for years so the AI revolution which I don't care for is where I'm consciously letting myself get left behind to find something else to do with my life. Haven't touched it. Was too late to claim one of the first tranche of Claude licences. And the second. Oops. Maybe I'll use AI in my next big adventure, or maybe my distaste for it all means I have a grand future waiting for me in the hospitality industry!