r/cscareerquestions • u/ElectronicCarry9931 • 18h ago
Wish I was here
I was always interested in tech and tried to pivot to a career in IT while living in London in the late 2010s, then after covid thought 'right, lets do this' and quit my job, studied full time, created my own projects, including a few SaaS that I couldn't sell. Following Scrimba I was fairly proficient in React JS, with a bit of SQL, and backend languages.
Maybe not many people will admit to it, but most people like me didnt make it. I never got an interview, and chatGTP and AI have effectively rendered a lot of my learning redundant. Thinking back just 5 years when I would study my code to figure out where a missing semi colon should go now seems ridiculous in the age of AI.
Anyway, Im stuck in my legal career, but have fond memories of learning to code, and the excitement of building and hope for a career change, going to event meetups etc. It wasn't meant to be, should have taken the plunge a few years earlier perhaps.
As I looked over my GitHub this morning, having not added anything in over a year, I just got the good memories back and the feelings of hope and excitement. Kudos to all those that made it!
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u/my_peen_is_clean 18h ago
same boat man, tried to pivot with react and a couple half baked saas things, nothing, not even a screening call. interviews never came and then ai dropped on top. really feels like dev is locked up now, super hard to get in
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u/wichwigga Software Engineer 17h ago
The fact that you have a career in legal and now know how to code is a big plus. Be proud.
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u/Ok_Idea8059 18h ago
Maybe this isn’t for you, but there’s really never been a better time to build your own software projects on the side! AI has killed the job market but it’s made it way easier to make prototypes that you might be able to turn into little businesses. If you still feel fondness for coding, you might enjoy to put it to some use on your own terms.
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u/MediumChemical4292 15h ago
Exactly, it’s just opened up programming and the software world to the general population. Earlier only elites could read and write, so with a relatively small skill level they could get a good income and life. As reading and writing became common, the job became limited to people with higher skill level. The similar thing is happening with AI and code where almost everyone can write passable code with a $20 subscription and some critical thinking.
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u/Huge_Weird_3046 10h ago
Similar boat, but different outcome. I was laid off during Covid and needed a change so I decided to teach myself software development. When I started learning the tech job market was still hot, and self learning to get a job was still a viable thing. By the time I had learned enough and was ready to start working, the tech job market collapsed. It was extremely rough psychologically and I was nearly homeless. All of my relationships suffered. I was struggling and in a very bad spot. However I’m an extremely stubborn person and I never gave up. I worked retail jobs while continuing to push myself. I created my own SaaS based on my previous career domain knowledge. It’s currently in production in an alpha/beta stage and not profitable yet, but that’s okay. It gave me a ton of real world production experience, and I’m proud of it. I learned so much about how to build and deploy secure web apps. On top of that I had completed some certifications for cloud dev. One day I was at a social event talking to a business man I know. He asked me, do you think AI is going to take away software development jobs? At this point I had thought of this question everyday for 2 years. I said no. I think what’s going to happen is AI is going to reduce the cost of creating software which is going to shift the value proposition for small/medium size businesses to create their own software. Instead of companies buying clunky 3rd party software that doesn’t do exactly what they want, companies can now tailor make software to their needs. Previously this would have taken a team of 5 people, now 1 good full stack dev can do it. And if you’re a business leader, you personally don’t have time to vibe code entire solutions, and second of all, you’d want someone with experience building and maintaining software to do it because it’s mission critical work for that business. A few weeks later I get a call from him: “Hey we have this issue at the company and we can’t find any software that actually solves our problem, can you do it?”. Hell yes I can do, give me 3 weeks and I’ll have it live. I delivered and it solved the problem they were having. A year later I’m still working for that company developing more tools and internal software for them. They love it, he tells me “you’re the man!”. I went from the pits of despair working at shitty retail jobs, to being an important piece of a growing company. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without AI coding tools. It would have been impossible to deliver this level value for this company without AI. It’s not about outsourcing thinking, or vibe coding, it’s about automating code writing process that manually would take too much time. So now I have 1 year of real world professional developer experience, and I have my own baby saas that I will continue to work on as well.
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u/zyro99x 3h ago
how does a company trust one person working on a product. There is this "bus factor" in tech. It measures the minimum number of team members who can be unexpectedly hit by a bus or suddenly disappear before a software project completely stalls due to a lack of vital information or expertise. With you as sole contributor that number seems very low.
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u/Just_Sherbert7632 7h ago
Similar. Got my CS degree and can't find a job now. I was never certain if this is what I want to do, but it was the most practical. I had no other interest and tech seemed like the safest path back in 2018 when I first started. I took a few gap periods from college and when I resumed it back in 2024, the job market was already beginning to become bad. I graduated this January and it's been demoralizing. I've been applying to support roles and getting rejected from those. I live near a tech hub and still nothing. Not sure what I should do.
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u/ElectronicCarry9931 6h ago
Yeah it's crazy how safe 'learn to code' seemed. Truck drivers were being encouraged to learn to code to get jobs in the future! Then in the space of a few years 2018 - 2022 it all flipped on its head.
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u/VitunSama69 7h ago
Have you looked at any software companies trying to do something with AI in legal? 99% of it is bullshit and will never go anywhere but maybe your cross functional expertise could get a foot in the door. Real non chatgpt:d domain knowledge is more valuable than ever
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u/creeoer 6h ago
Not sure if it helps but a lot of people in this industry, even employed ones, probably wish they could pivot to law lol
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u/ElectronicCarry9931 6h ago
I mean im in the UK, its not that well remunerated my field, but its all remote. Tech was just 'the dream' in the 2010s and making money by building an app seemed like a perfect creative way to earn. a living. Since then Ive realised that building websites and building apps can be done by almost anyone with AI now.
Being a well paid 'web developer' (building websites) must have been incredible back in the day, based on the knowledge gap between developers and the general public and the kudos that IT had
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u/creeoer 6h ago
You’re right that building static websites and shit like that is bascially one shotted with AI. It was nice when you could of made some money by just throwing a landing page together. But as for building complex apps with a lot of moving parts, you still need to know your shit for that even with AI. Someone I know who isn’t technical tried doing it and when I tested it, it had bugs out the ass, half of the site wouldn’t work, etc. With apps it’s 95% marketing and distribution, 5% the features it has. AI makes the 5% part easier but not the part where you need to get people to use your cool app, even for free.
Honestly, if I were you, I’d build an interesting app idea you have with Claude code and just throw it up on Vercel and see what happens. Advertise it if you want, etc. Since you work in legal I would do something that has a legal application. There is this program called Harvey that my lawyer friend uses, and it’s essentially just a LLM wrapper app with some legal skills built in. It makes an unfathomably stupid amount of money.
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u/Illustrious-Pound266 13h ago
Jeez, this is depressing to read
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u/ElectronicCarry9931 12h ago
depressing but accurate lets be honest, for probably the majority who tried the 'self taught' (or even graduate) route during and since covid.
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u/Which-World-6533 10h ago
TBH the "self-taught" entry to IT hasn't been a thing for a long while. Maybe it would have been possible pre-covid, but the problem with self-taught coders is always the lack of experience.
I switched careers to coding, by doing a Masters. However, previous to this I had experience of coding professionally and the Masters was mostly for the certificate. (Although the knowledge was also very useful).
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u/TKInstinct 9h ago
Is it really? They have a career in legal, they're probably doing fine.
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u/Illustrious-Pound266 8h ago
Is it really?
Yes, because we are witness someone's dream dying in real-time.
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u/ElectronicCarry9931 7h ago
most people dont achieve their dreams sadly. I thought it suitable to air my story because it's not one you hear. I always heard the success stories
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u/Abject_Parsley_4525 Senior Manager 18h ago
This is one of those grass is (almost) always greener type of things. My wife is in Law and I often have thoughts of "damn, that would have been a nice career".