Struggling to find my way in life after AI changed Software Engineering

Hey folks,

I'm sure you've seen similar complaints about software engineering and how AI is transforming the field into what can feel like a soulless, crushing environment, sorry for doing it again.

I'm 25. I started loving computers when I was 7 and got my first job at 14. I've pretty much never stopped since. Four years ago, I joined a big tech, at the time it was a dream job for me, and I don't regret that decision at all. The stability and career progression were exactly what I was looking for.

But about 2 years ago, things started to change.

I'm now in an environment where AI usage is enforced by policy. We have tracking software installed by IT that measures how many PRs, commits, and lines of code we produce every day, with a distinction between AI generated and human generated code. They moved me around from a great team into another area that I don't know or care, and I fell into an AI RAG project, so you can imagine how much of energy I bring to work everyday to work on something I despise.

If you produce too much human written code, your manager might message you asking to have a conversation about why AI wasn't sufficient for the task, as we are also lab rats for their new AI model in training.

Somewhere along the way, I went from being a software engineer to something closer to QA and Product. These days, a huge part of my job is prompting, and honestly, it's making me miserable. The worst parts of the job remain, all the joy was taken away and the responsibility somehow is even bigger as I have to own the AI generated code, present as 'my own' on team showcases and people pretend it's a great thing, that doesn't even make any sense. All of that while my brain atrophies.

I love software engineering. I love creating things. I've always felt that software was a form of art: taking complex systems and turning them into something simple, reliable, maintainable, and observable. It sounds easy until you've actually had to do it.

But now, AI can generate something that superficially looks like the same thing. Maybe the code underneath is horrendous. Maybe it's spaghetti. Maybe it's impossible to maintain. But leadership doesn't seem to care, it's definitely faster to produce so it should be better, right?

The user sees a bunch of new features and everything appears to be moving quickly. But I genuinely believe you can feel the difference when you use something that was built with care versus something that was simply pushed through a roadmap without anyone really thinking deeply about it, as this even happened before AI.

It's similar to games. Look at something like RDR2: people are still discovering details years later. A huge part of what makes that game special is the sheer dedication and craftsmanship of the developers who built it. That kind of passion feels increasingly rare, and honestly, I find that really sad.

Anyway, enough with the doom and gloom.

What I'm really looking for is advice on how to move forward with my life.

I'm not performing well. I hate my day-to-day job. And I can't seem to be enough business-oriented to land startup, especially as software becomes increasingly commoditized and so much easier to 'copy'.

I'm considering moving into a completely different field. I just don't know whether everything I've learned would be wasted, or whether I can take those skills somewhere else and find that sense of joy again. It's just really depressing thinking about that, I don't have enough money to retire and I'm only 25, so I have to find something to work for the next decades where I'm not a prodigy anymore, I am not starting early I'm actually late. I kid you not there's nights I don't sleep over this I am really worried about my future.

I like creating things. I know some CAD, I love tinkering with my 3D printer, and I enjoy Linux and pretty much anything computer related. I had the time of my life setting up my modest homelab, with a Linux server managing my network and various devices.

I'm pretty good with computers, and I know a bit of electronics. I've built a few projects over the years using MCUs like Arduino and ESP32.

I've even considered moving into embedded systems. But then I wonder: is it just a matter of time before AI commoditizes that field too, if it hasn't already?

So I'm kind of stuck.

For those who have gone through something similar, how did you figure out what to do next? And if you moved away from traditional software engineering, where did you end up?