Looking back to October 2025, after leaving my previous company, I started looking for a job. I applied for a role as an AI Development Engineer, where the core responsibility was utilizing AI tools for website development. I remember the technical solution I proposed back then was using IntelliJ IDEA coupled with corresponding AI Agents for collaborative development. At that time, humans were responsible for 60% of the development work, while AI handled 30%.
Fast forward to now (June 2026), about 8 months later, and my perspective has completely changed.
My current development workflow is now 90% AI-driven and 10% executed by me. In fact, I barely touch coding anymore. I only focus on the product’s direction and whether the final user experience is good. As for product quality, I review it from two or more different perspectives using AI Agents, and even double-check things with traditional plugins.
I never expected my mindset to shift so drastically in just 8 short months. It has happened so fast that sometimes I can’t help but question myself: Should I even stay in the programming field? Furthermore, does the value of a database consultant today still lie solely in operational skills like tuning? Development and operations skills still hold value, but they have become incredibly accessible. Anyone who knows how to spot problems and ask AI the right questions can leverage them effortlessly. So, what will low-to-mid-tier talent who only focus on drilling deep into technical specs do over the next 10 years?
This is the exact dilemma I am currently wrestling with.
I am still in the middle of figuring things out and finding my bearings.
Right now, I see consistent content creation as a viable direction—for instance, sharing experience-driven articles, building portfolios, and so on. However, this ventures into product operations and marketing, an area completely foreign to me. How do I uncover market opportunities and survive in this space?
After spending nearly 10 years as an employee, carving out my own niche in the market and going from 0 to 1 is incredibly challenging. But I believe I will find my way.