I’m kind of sick of being a dev. I hate AI with a passion.
I hate the hallucinations, I hate slop, I hate megacrops, I hate the environmental impacts, I hate the massive costs. I could go on but you get the picture.
At work I often times have to review vibe code slop from people who clock in 9 to 5 and don’t give a fuck (I respect that, I just wish your fucking code wasn’t slop)
I’m sick of it, I’m sick of hearing about AI tooling or new models or bro agentic actions bro based on your documentation bro.
I want to switch careers, so which career is not ruined by AI?
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Join us, become a tradie. Get a company vehicle. Work with your hands. Become enough of an expert in your trade that you can tell customers to go fuck themselves if they’re dicks. Have every company in the area be desperate to hire you because every trade is short handed. Work with people who barely understand the concept of a computer. Spend half of every paycheck on milwalkee packout tool boxes. Never have to work with AI again.
My preference is HVAC-R but plumber or electrician are also good choices. Building automation may seem attractive but then you’re getting close to the AI danger zone again.
And say goodbye to your knees!
AI will never be able to throw bricks at cops. Something to consider
Do you get dental?
The settlement money from the city after I get my eyes blown out by “less lethal” rounds tends to cover it.
You’re from Stuttgart
Im not sure if this a meme or an accusation. But I am not, neither the one in Germany or Arkansas.
It just so happened that in Stuttgart there were protests and police in fact did blow one guy’s eye out of the socket in a very similar way you said.
I thought that you’re referring to that.
No :( only vision to ensure good aim
A drone with a cord goes a long way.
I did this 9 years ago. I make 2/3rds of what I did in software, but I don’t regret it. pivoted to environmental work. My job satisfaction is like, a thousand percent better.
Can you say any more about the type of environmental work?
I started over doing entry level spray tech work treating exotic plants through americorps and worked my way up. I do a lot of field data collection and gis work now. So, I still utilize my old software skills. I work for my local government doing environmental land management.
GIS is definitely a software adjacent job that is utilized a lot in land management. But that isn’t the initial route I took. I really did just kind of started over.
Thank you for sharing
Anything that requires physical work. Manufacturing, trades, etc… But, there’s the caveat that AI may still indirectly affect these too.
I’m in building maintenance. It’s not affected at all by AI. Most of the trades are safe. Basically anything which would require both advanced LLM and advanced robotics to replace.
Also a software eng (for now), genuinely thinking of starting my own barbershop lmao.
a career in poisoning AI
See if Haven Social are hiring?
would be nice if i can make a living out of doing that lol
Alas, they’re not paying for that. They’re not paying for what they need to achieve their goals either.
I work in a datacenter. I rack servers, I look after the cooling system, the generators, the ups’s, etc. I won’t ever be replaced by AI. Without me there is no AI. And I barely interact with it. I play with toys all day.
The environmental impacts still bother me. But IT has always been wasteful, even before AI. I hate recycling days when I see exactly how much plastics, styrofoam and metals are going to the dump.
I feel ya. But the pendulum will probably swing back the other way soon and we’ll have a ton of companies hiring to undo/replace slop code. That’s how it has been for previous coding fads, anyway.
I’m so tired of my skill and income being beholden to the whims of bullshit artists though.
I was going to say my industry, sewer and water but now they’re forcing cameras with AI in them into our with vehicle to “save on insurance.” More like spy on us and figure out why we’re messing around with one fire hydrant so long.
I hate it here.
There is the (more difficult) option of finding a dev job for an older tech conservative company. My workplace has just barely rolled out access to copilot chat. Our devs are still doing things without the slop.
Look at the more heavily regulated business sectors, they tend to be more resistant to tech fads.
Plumbing is fairly safe from any kind of automation and also well paid.
They do use robots for pipe inspection and minor repairs, but that’s about the extend of what the clankers will ever be able to do.
[off topic?]
I recommend this book to anyone thinking about a career change.
“Discover What You Are Best At.” Linda Gail. Six self tests you can finish in half a day, and a list of jobs that use those skills. Jobs range from zero new training to post college.
Really helped me when I was looking for career advice.
Thank you for the very helpful suggestion.
I got a great career that I never expected from reading this book.
Good luck.
What was the career though?
I’m in tech but in the non-profit sector. For what we do, there is virtually no use case for ai. I basically just make sure everything runs properly. No one is expecting me to turn out code that will turn into profits. I’m not rolling in the dough like a lot of tech workers, but im not micromanaged, I get to make all the decisions, and im not working for an evil corporation. So I suggest looking at non profits. They are typically run by people who know very little about tech. You’ll be an easy hire if your resume is as good as it sounds.
Just be careful of people who volunteer at non profits. Most will be good, but since they’re not getting paid, their motivation may be strongly ego driven. That can be problematic.
I’m a lathe operator. No AI there yet. And my lathe runs Linux too…
Inference of 3D models exists. Combined with a rule deck of what the machine is capable of (i.e. so tools aren’t broken) I think you could be very close to “prompt to object” prototyping flows — if they don’t already exist.
Still might need a pair of hands to clean up.
Now, how many botched tries are people willing to to pay the material cost of, who knows?
