@radekmieBy Radosław Miernik · Published on
Every once in a while, I meet some of my old friends whose jobs – at least on paper – sound extremely similar to mine. Some of them are jokingly saying that I’m simply stupid for not relying on AI more, as it could save me hours. Others don’t, but they are mostly on the “it killed my passion” side…
I relate to both feelings, really. If I could do less and have the same outcomes, why wouldn’t I? The point is that I don’t believe that statement; at least not if I include myself in the equation. Could I code faster? Maybe. Could I produce more value for the company and its stakeholders (including myself)? Probably.
But how about the value of me, a person who is doing it?
I had a quick chat with a student of mine, who recently moved to a company providing agentic solutions. The moment he added it to his LinkedIn profile, recruiters fell in love with him. Well, it’s not a new phenomenon – Facebook, Google, Intel, and NVIDIA have done the same for years now.
And it’s not only on the employer side – candidates know it as well. We’ve just wrapped up another hiring round, and oh boy, how many people list AI on their resumes! Whether it’s a project they worked on, a tool they used, or simply the fact they use it at work – it must be there.
To some extent, it feels just like another technology. If I were to replace “AI” with “serverless” or “Rust”, most of these claims would remain plausible. But to me, it means it was irrelevant and could have been omitted. I ranted about it in “On Why Resumes Are Terrible” already; let’s move to something else.
Have you ever been in a situation where someone started reading whatever their LLM-of-choice produced in a meeting? Like, they asked an open question you were discussing, and shared this answer as their own. I hope you were not.
But if that would happen, what would you do? Such LLM-born answers are not totally random, and often sound smart enough to feel reasonable… But that’s it. There’s no substance, and you can immediately sense the level of vagueness you must operate on. (That applies to Scott from the sales team too, I know.)
Back in “On Developers in C-Level Meetings”, I suggested we should not feel guilty for asking noob questions about topics we know little about. It looks like the abundance of expert-looking answers killed the curiosity amongst many.
I said it many times and will say it again: the fact that you can learn stuff and get better every time you fail is amazing. Some companies people believe the same will apply to AI. In the meantime, please apply it to yourself.
Getting back to the people who lost the flame because of it… It’s tough. You are all truly wonderful. And tired as hell. Yet, I’m still ranting that you should spend at least a second of your brainpower on sharpening your skills.
Read a high-quality article (not this one; I’m your dinner-time YouTube video) on a topic that interested you in the past. Play a game that will force you to think for more than a few seconds. Or, I don’t know, take a touch typing course – at least for the time being, we’re stuck with keyboards anyway.
This is no medical advice, but I feel like the burnout problem is similar to not having energy due to a lack of physical activity. It has worked for me in both of these cases (I covered the former in “On the Edge of Burnout”), and I strongly encourage you to see for yourself if it works.
Is coding art? I’m not sure, but it sure is a creative process. It definitely takes time; some would say it requires a soul. And it’s not just you and the keyboard! There’s a myriad of things around it, that we just agreed to write down.
Initially, I wanted this text to cover the topic of skill atrophy, i.e., how we lose an ability to do something the less we do it. I saw it happen to my colleagues and friends. As sad as I think it is, I won’t call you out for letting go.
Get better, fellow creators.