This last week kinda blew my mind.

I’ve made my own versions of some apps that I was paying for, like Wispr Flow and ManyChat, and I’ve cancelled the subscriptions.

I think this is a trend that’s going to disrupt the software industry.

Let me explain.

You may have seen this trend on X, of founders like Pieter Levels posting that their app revenues are dropping.

I think we’re at the start of a new shift. Rather than paying subscriptions for apps, you can make your own custom product, tailored to your own needs and your own vibe.

I’ve used the app Wispr Flow for over 6 months. You press a button, talk into a mic, and it types out your speech and sometimes corrects it. It’s a great app, and it’s reportedly raising at close to a $2 billion valuation.

It costs around $15 a month. I did a free trial to test it out, and I’ve never paid at the end of a free trial quicker. Going back to hand typing felt jarring, so I paid straight away.

But after this week I don’t use it anymore, and you probably don’t need to pay for it either.

Now, Wispr Flow has some advanced features, but most people don’t use them, and they’re mostly replicable too.

I’ve done this for other apps I use as well.

side note - the team at Wispr Flow actually reached out to me weeks ago to do some sponsored content with them, but it never ended up happening. So I assume this blog marks a death to that potential partnership lol 💀.

But I’m not picking on Wispr Flow, I’m just using it as an example, it could be any app.

Like Many Chat. Like Granola. Really good apps, but rather than paying $15 a month, you make your own version.

Let me explain how it works.

It could save you hundreds of dollars a month.

First, I recommend this site

Can I vibe code it?.

It gives you a list of the apps that are easy to vibe code in one prompt. AI models are developing at an incredible rate, so this list is only going to get bigger.

Start with anything that has a ‘yes’ flag. It’s just a site that shows you what’s possible, that’s it.

Then go to any AI and ask it to make the prompt for you. (I asked for a prompt to recreate Wispr Flow for Mac.)

It gave me the prompt, I took it to Cursor, and it built the app using Opus 5.

Now I have a full app that works like Wispr Flow, an app I used to pay $15 a month for.

I recommend you try this.

What was funny is that it barely asked me any questions about tech stack. It was more interested in what I wanted to call the app.

It took an hour, cost just over $4, and it called it ‘Murmur’. I then switched the name to ‘Wispurr’. 🐈

What’s cool is that I can add a little cat icon to it, so I can personalise the app if I want.

I have a friend who likes Batman, and I was thinking I could make a version for him with a load of custom features he might like, as a birthday gift.

This brings me onto Cyberdecks

You’ll have seen the trend of cyberdecks taking over the internet, and that’s another reason I think this is the future.

Cyberdecks are basically DIY, anti-establishment, custom-made computers. The fact they’re blowing up is signalling something to us.

People are jaded by algorithms and by boring, generic software. They want software to feel personal again, they want to own it, customise it and some want to be involved in making it.

I predict a rise in personal, custom software and apps.

The irony is that to build bespoke software, you’ll likely have to use an AI model (the cyberdeck movement is very much anti big tech and anti AI).

Right now. You buy an app, it looks generic, and is made for the masses.

Soon though, a Gen Alpha college student might recreate her own note-taking app but with a Japanese anime aesthetic from her favourite series, and add her own bespoke features.

But an interesting question is.

What does this mean for the future of software and the SaaS industry?

I think it reinforces the dominance we’re about to see from the big AI labs like Anthropic and Open AI.

Not only do they kill off thousands of SaaS products whenever they release a new feature, but they will also allow their customers to just make a custom version of their favourite apps using their AI models.

The big question, is will ‘normal people’, start doing this? i.e those are not technical, and not using AI products like Claude, and not AI-pilled tech bros. Are they going to start building their own custom, bespoke apps?

Eventually, I think, yes.

Some people are saying that SaaS is dying. This is rubbish.

Building a business will never die, but it’s key to think about it commercially from day one.

These are the key things to think of when building an app or SaaS nowadays

1. Distribution is well and truly king now. If you are thinking of making an app, I would argue that you need to start with first asking. Do I have a marketing strategy for this app? Also have I validated this? so I can get lots of eyeballs on my products?

2. Build in public, but be cautious. Apps can be copied quite easily now. So think about building something that can’t be copied easily. If you feel you have a novel idea, I’d be cautious about promoting it before it’s released. If it gets traction on release, be aware that lots of people will be thinking of copying you, and they might have a bigger ad spend that you. Brutal, but true.

3. Data can’t be copied. If your product involves your own proprietary data, that is the product.

4. Shift away from indie hacking and to VC-backed apps. Why? It goes back to distribution, if your product is funded you can afford to do a lot of paid ads.

5. In real life/community focused apps and just apps that can’t easily be copied.

Definitely a time for indie hackers or people building their own apps to reflect.

But, whenever there is a disruption like this, there are lots of opportunities.

A goal of my content is to keep you one step ahead of this, so stay tuned.

See you in the next one.

A

Latest YouTube below, on how I’d learn to code in the AI era (and if you even should learn to nowadays).

I believe anyone can change their life through technology.

We’re aiming to learn for 6 months, then to earn $100k after 12 months.

So, think of what you’d do with that kind of money, and let that be your fuel.

Don’t worry, the areas we are going to focus on, are some of the most lucrative in the AI and tech space, so this is very doable.

The big goal of my content is to help people change their lives through technology, and I’m not trying to sell you anything. But if you don’t have goals, it’s all a bit aimless.

And I’ve done it. I’m writing this from the perspective of talking to my younger self (so it might sound a little like tough love at times, but that’s what I needed).

It took me 11 months. I went from working an awful office job to living a life of freedom and eventually wealth, with multiple streams of income.

I learned to code, built things, and posted the work publicly. It worked, and when I look back at how, it wasn’t luck or talent. It was being boringly consistent, and a handful of ordinary decisions that anyone can repeat. This post is those decisions.

First, one of my favourite ever quotes (it was once my iPhone background):

Tech is one of the few fields that doesn’t care about your background if your work is good. Nobody asks where you went to school when your app works, or when your automation saves a client ten hours a week, or when you close a deal.

That’s unusual, and it’s why someone starting from nothing can move quickly.

Why start now

Timing matters.

Right now, we are seeing a gold rush of AI and tech which is still maturing and still has opportunity.

Also you can build a small audience around what you’re learning for almost nothing, because the feeds aren’t full yet. That won’t last.

I believe something called the “infinite content machine” is coming.

As it gets easier to flood every platform with AI-generated content, attention gets harder to earn, and it’s going to be harder and harder to gain an audience.

Tech and AI are what I teach on my page, and there is opportunity out there right now.

The door is open right now because demand is higher than the number of people who can do the work, and that gap shrinks every month as more people move in.

Here are the steps.

1) quit brain rot

You have to quit brain rot content and consumption. It will kill your dreams.

Video games, TikTok, news, the scroll, X.

Whatever is taking up your attention right now is literally stopping you. Twenty years from now you’ve got to look back at the decisions you made.

I can’t tell you how to do this. You’ve just got to do it yourself.

No one is coming to save you.

If you spend too much time on social media, playing video games, or whatever is consuming your time. Put a system in place. Don’t rely on your own willpower.

Don’t sacrifice long-term success for short-term gratification.

You cannot build anything while a few hours of every day disappear into a feed.

2) pick one skill worth paying for

These are a list of skills and areas in tech and AI that I’ve hand-picked, which I believe have a huge upside. Some you start totally from scratch. Some, like people management, suit someone who already works in tech.

And there’s ones like building an app or learning AI automations.

Again, I can’t tell you which. But all of these have an opportunity in right now. It might change in a year, but you should find which one you vibe with, and go for it.

Here’s a rough list, ordered from easiest to break into to hardest:

• Tech sales: the most underrated way in. You don’t need a technical degree, and since it’s commission-based, your income grows with your results. Good if you need money coming in soon.

• AI automations and consulting: most businesses still do a lot of manual work that current tools can handle. You don’t build the models, you connect them to a company’s workflow and charge for the time you save them.

• Building apps and SaaS: you make software people pay to use. Higher ceiling, takes longer to earn, and you own what you build. A big focus with apps now is distribution (I’ll get to that)

• Generative AI: the image, text, and video tools everyone is trying to figure out. It moves fast, so knowing what worked six months ago already puts you ahead.

• AI/ML engineering: building and training the models instead of just using them. More technical, harder to get into, paid well for it.

• Robotics: early and difficult, with a payoff over the next decade that could be huge. A longer-term bet than the others.

• Founding engineer: join a small startup and take equity instead of a big salary. The equity only pays off if the company works, so you’re betting on your judgment as much as your skills.

• Big tech: the highest status and the hardest to get into.

• People management: if you’re already in tech, this is the quickest way to more responsibility and pay without switching fields. It means you stay in the 9-5, but focus on the most lucrative part (always will be management roles) so you can target early retirement.

There’s no right answer. The best skill is the one you’ll still be doing in month six once the novelty wears off, because that’s where most people quit and where the real progress starts.

3) make short-form content

There’s a huge amount of upside in starting short-form content. The reason I say short form is that I think it’s the easiest to get into. All of the algorithms are built for discovery, which means it can be free attention.

Whilst people hate on TikTok, the ‘TikTokification’ of content has meant that followers isn’t actually that important anymore.

But, you’re not trying to go viral.

You’re just showing what you’re learning: what you built this week, what broke, what finally clicked. Post about the cool stuff you’re learning and interested in.

And get it out of your head that you need to be an expert.

Do it consistently and it becomes both a portfolio and a network. Clients and employers hire people they can see doing the work, and posting about your work regularly is a low bar that almost nobody keeps up for more than a couple of weeks.

Learn hooks, learn about storytelling, evoke emotion. Don’t make it all about you, and make your audience the hero. Study content that inspires you, and create something.

A lot of people hold back from doing this because they’re obsessed with what other people think of them, or with looking like a failure.

The biggest failure will be in 20 or 30 years, when you look back and see you didn’t do the thing you wanted to do.

And if you post a lot and the posts flop, no one sees them anyway lol. There’s literally no downside.

But you can’t make 20 posts and give up. You have to commit to consistently posting 3 days a week for 6 months. If you don’t do that, you have no right to say ‘I tried my best’. I’m sorry you didn’t.

I also recommend these. Substack, LinkedIn (yeah…I know…but these have the biggest brand deals due to the business focused audience). I do also recommend YouTube, but it’s harder to start.

4) build your own thing

Eventually you have to make something real and put it in front of real people: a product, an app, a small service, a business.

It might fail.

A failed project still teaches you more than a course does.

Courses give you clean problems that already have answers.

A real project gives you messy ones nobody has solved for you, and working through those is where the skills actually stick.

Tutorials feel productive because they’re easy. The thing that breaks in front of a paying customer is what teaches you what matters.

If you do this, you will be a lot further ahead than you are now. Time is going to pass anyway. So you might as well spend that time working towards something you dream of.

Where to start this week

Again, that quote again.

“People overestimate what they can achieve in a day, but underestimate what they can achieve in 1 year.”

You don’t have to do all of it at once. Cut your biggest time drain. Pick one skill and give it two weeks before you judge it. Post one thing about what you’re learning. Sketch the smallest version of something you could ship.

MAKE A LIST…..like

• do a basic AI automation youtube course

• learn basic editing in capcut

• watch a youtube vid andrew made about making apps… whatever

None of this is complicated. It’s slow and a bit uncomfortable rather than hard, which is exactly why the opportunity stays open.

Most people won’t stick with slow and uncomfortable long enough for it to pay off.

The big ‘why’, of why I make content, is this.

To inspire people, particularly young men who feel lost, alone, and not good enough, to change their life through technology.

Share this with someone it might help.

P.S. Latest YouTube below. You might like it on AI concepts for anyone who works in tech.

A

The Hottest Job in Tech Right Now is the Forward Deployed Engineer

If you have been paying attention to hiring trends in tech over the last year, you might have noticed this role popping up more and more.

This might get your attention.

The salaries are life changing.

$385K on average, and can reach $1.2 million at the frontier labs (like OpenAI and Anthropic). Yep, I know, working at Anthropic is no easy task, but even as an average earner for a fortune 500 company, that’s insane.

I have preached a lot about how software engineers who have good social skills really have nothing to worry about in terms of AI in the future.

They’ll not only survive, but will flourish, and this role is a perfect example.

Venture capital firm a16z has called it one of the hottest jobs in tech right now. Companies like OpenAI, Ramp, and Palantir (🤢) are hiring a lot of them.

But what actually is it, and how do you become one?

What Is a Forward Deployed Engineer?

A Forward Deployed Engineer, or FDE, is a software engineer who sits between the customer and the core product team. They embed with customers, understand their problems, build solutions on their infrastructure, and then bring those learnings back to improve the core product. Basically the person who gets sent in when everyone else has given up.

They don’t have to be in the top 1% of engineers, rather good generalists. But they have to be really good at communicating, and understanding software engineering very well.

Think of it like a startup CTO role inside a larger company. Small teams, high stakes projects, end to end ownership, and a lot of ambiguity.

Except you also have to be charming enough that the client actually likes you.

The best way to think about it, is like this. One capability, many customers is what a normal software engineer does. One customer, many capabilities is what an FDE does.

What Makes It Different From Other Roles?

You might be thinking this sounds like a Solutions Architect or a Sales Engineer. And there’s a temptation to think this is just another role recycled, but there is overlap. Here is how they differ.

Solutions Architects are more advisory. They rarely write code on customer infrastructure and usually build proofs of concept with anonymised data. Sales Engineers are mostly pre-sales. Agent Engineers focus on building AI agents. Technical Delivery Engineers are more project focused.

They are basically the person who both identifies the problem and actually fixes it. Which sounds obvious but is apparently rare enough to name a whole job after.

How Do You Actually Become One?

There’s lots of clickbaity misinformation from non technical AI influencers about this. But here is what companies are actually looking for.

1. At least a solid mid level Software Engineer. Most companies want 3 to 5 years of real experience. Not tutorials. Not side projects. Actual shipped software. Strong Python or TypeScript, solid API knowledge, and real integration experience. You’ll get

2. End to end shipping experience. FDEs scope, build, and deliver solutions from start to finish. You need to have done this before. Companies like Ramp and OpenAI are specifically looking for people who can own a project completely without needing their hand held every step of the way.

3. Deep LLM and AI knowledge. This is the key for the best paid roles right now. The explosion in FDE hiring is almost entirely driven by companies needing engineers who can integrate AI products into complex enterprise environments. If you do not have this yet, that is what your weekends are for.

4. Customer facing experience. Open to interpretation as to what this could actually entail, but how you interview is key. Basically the opposite of the old stereotype of anti social engineers. FDEs write code directly on customer infrastructure, demo solutions in boardrooms, run scoping sessions with non-technical stakeholders, and collaborate with sales to close deals. If you have never done this, start saying yes to every customer call, demo, and cross-functional meeting you can. Even the painful ones.
   Get good at explaining technical things to non technical people.
   ChatGPT is actually great at this 💀

The combination of all four is extremely rare. That is why these engineers are so valuable.

What Does the Day to Day Actually Look Like?

It changes constantly. Some weeks you are deep in code. Other weeks you are on a plane to Iowa helping a 200 year old agriculture company figure out how to use AI (an OpenAI FDE actually went to Iowa for this).

At OpenAI (which pay, life changing salaries) FDE projects run in three phases. First, early scoping - a couple of days onsite, mapping processes, identifying high value areas, prototyping with synthetic data.

Second, validation - building evaluation criteria, testing the solution against real customer data, adjusting scope based on what is actually possible. Third, delivery - building the full solution, demoing to the customer, iterating fast.

For some people, the word ‘onsite’ alone, sounds like hell. I feel you.

Why Is This Role Exploding Right Now?

Two reasons. First, AI. Integrating LLMs into enterprise workflows is genuinely hard. It requires engineers who understand the technology deeply but can also sit with a non-technical customer and figure out what they actually need.

That combination is rare, as someone whos been in interviews for senior engineers in this last year.

Second, enterprise sales cycles. When a potential customer is on the fence about whether they can actually use a product, companies send in an FDE to prove it works. FDEs help close deals. That makes them directly tied to revenue in a way most engineers are not - which is also why they get paid well.

Is This Role Actually Right For You?

I meet engineers who love being given a task, and then listening to music unbothered as they solve problems. They simply love building stuff and prefer to specialise rather than generalise. Also enjoy being shielded from politics, meetings and….people.

But also I met a lot who are tired of coding. Just looking at a screen and want variety, or are commercial minded.

If you are an engineer who likes variety, likes working with people, I’d consider it. It’s also very bulletproof in terms of future growth.

The engineers who thrive as FDEs are the ones who are just as comfortable in a boardroom as they are in a codebase. And right now, those people are worth, a lot of money.

Engineering roles are changing, and leaning into the human side (like managing people for example) is where the best paid roles will always be.

If you’re just starting out, don’t worry about this too much, just get technical.

But keep an eye on my youtube. If you watch those videos, I’m guiding you into these types of roles by teaching the technical stuff (like this), and how to develop your soft skills (like this). I’ve got AI engineering, claude code tutorials and one focused on the best tech stack to builds apps, all coming in the next few weeks on YouTube.

See you in the next one. I appreciate your support and attention.

If you found value in this, or it open your eyes to something. Let me know.

A

p.s an update on my app in the vid below, and life in Brazil. Will be in Europe this summer, and will share my life & what I’m up to in my IG stories

At the end of 2022, Rick Rubin (legendary music producer to Beastie Boys, Kanye, Red Hot Chili Peppers and…Shakira) became a meme.

He did an interview and said he gets paid millions for, quote, ‘having no technical ability, just the confidence I have in my taste’.

This was ridiculed at the time. As at that time, the idea of being paid so much for ‘not doing’, and just overseeing was out of touch with most people’s idea of what work is. The interview aired a few weeks after ChatGPT launched. The single event which sent AI adoption into the mainstream.

How times change.

Three years on, “taste” is the word everyone in tech is throwing around. Founders, designers, VCs. It’s in bios, in pitch decks, in every other thread. And there’s one specific reason it’s everywhere right now, but before we get there, I want to talk about what it actually is, because I think most people are using the word wrong.

Taste isn’t fashion.

It isn’t saying that’s a sexy B2B SaaS dashboard.

It’s not having an aesthetic. It’s the intuition for what works in whatever context you’re operating in. It’s looking at something and knowing, before you can fully explain why, that it’s 80% there versus actually done.

And the part nobody talks about is that taste on its own isn’t enough. You also have to be assertive enough to defend it. To sit in a room and say this is off, here’s why, and here’s what would make it better.

Without that second piece, taste is just a private opinion.

I used to work in branding (if you follow my social media you’ll know I’ve had many different jobs). Every single piece of creative work, every campaign, every concept, got funneled to one female director in her 50’s. She’d sit in a room alone with the ideas. After sometimes an hour would come out of the room and either say yes or no. From the outside it looked like magic, but it was thousands of hours of looking at things and forming opinions about them. When I think of good taste professionally, I always think of that.

It’s also exactly the thing AI can’t do.

Some people will tell you AI already has better taste than most of us, and honestly, they’re not entirely wrong. It’s been trained on millions of examples of what humans consider good, and it’s genuinely great at mimicking aesthetic judgment. But there’s a ceiling. AI defaults to the middle. It can only respond to what already exists. It can’t pursue something that feels right when the data is ambiguous. It can’t decide what deserves to exist in the first place.

Humans push culture forward. AI catches up.

And this is the shift I think most people are missing. Hiring has always screened for skills and experience, which are basically proxies for one question: can this person produce output? But AI just compressed that gap. The distance between a mediocre hire and a good one, measured in raw output, is now tiny. Both can ship. Both can write something that reads fine. Both can design something that looks reasonable.

So the question changes. It becomes: do they know what good actually looks like? Can they tell when something is 80% there versus done? Can they look at their own work like a user instead of the person who made it?

That’s taste. And it’s about to be the thing that separates people.

The good news is it’s learnable.

If it were purely subjective, no one would ever get better at it, and people clearly do.

You build it through immersion. Soaking yourself in great work, in your field and outside it. Then forming opinions. Out loud. Deciding what you admire and what you don’t and figuring out why. For years, taste wasn’t something people actively worked on. They consume work passively and assume taste will just accumulate. It doesn’t. You build it by actually committing to a judgment and being willing to be wrong about it.

Spending time around people with taste you respect can be a short cut. Shadowing a manager, coming towards the end of their career. Watch what they reject that looked fine to you. Ask why. It’s how a sommelier trains an apprentice. You can’t shortcut the exposure but you can compound it.

Which brings me back to why this is suddenly everywhere.

For most of history, taste was a niche advantage. The art director at a magazine. The producer in a studio. A few thousand people might experience the result of their judgment.

That’s not the world anymore.

One person with a laptop can ship software that reaches billions (picture Mark Zuckerberg building Facebook from his dorm room). The taste calls, what to build, how it should feel, the taste of distribution, are now worth billions of dollars.

That’s the reason everyone’s obsessed with it. Not because it’s a new idea. Taste has always mattered. It’s that the leverage on it just went up by orders of magnitude.

Personal Update

Writing Medellin, Colombia, with this being my current view. After a chilled start to the year, locking in here till the summer. Been working on building my app which I aim to release by the summer, and making YouTube videos. Latest one below.

See you in the next one

A

The idea to build this app first came to me about 6 months ago, honestly…after a breakup I had.

The advice to get through a breakup you see again and again is to pick up new hobbies and to use it as a vehicle to grow. So I did.

I’ve always had this idea of *trying* to become a polymath. Someone who has many passions, hobbies and interests. For me, this is a life well lived.

My career so far has reflected this, I’ve worked in roles going from marketing, coding, content, sales to teaching.

I was looking for an app to help me organise all these new things I wanted to throw myself into. From becoming better at public speaking, chess to learning Spanish.

I wanted a way to find structured roadmaps to learn new skills and hobbies and record what I was learning, in an app.

There are a few apps that offer this. But they waterboard you with ads, or paywalls, and felt a bit uninspiring to use.

So I decided to build my own. This is also something I’m passionate about, so I’ll have at least one customer.

Here’s how it’s gone so far, things I’m struggling with, how I’ve found it, things which are going well so far when making The Polymath app.

A good way to think of app ideas is in terms of problems in your own life, so this was solving my own problem.

I think a consumer app is a good first step. I spent a week to two on the name. I considered ‘Hobbyism’, ‘Anti brain rot journal’, but settled on Polymath.

Then set up seperate Instagram, TikTok pages. I plan to use a mix of organic short from and building in public. Then eventually, paid ads maybe.

These thoughts crossed my mind. One thing doing content creation has taught me, is to just do things. If it’s something I might regret not trying, oh boy, that is the ultimate motivator for me. Way over any mild embarrassment I might have if this doesn’t work.

Since I started making content, I’ve been called most mean things, but the upside has been so great, that it has taught me to just go after things and become a growth minded person.

Even before I had all the features planned, I started building it.

I have used Cursor, Claude Code and Warp so far. Why three? I have done partnerships with them, and have credits 🤷🏻‍♂️

I used Manus to research things. Meta bought it a few months ago, and it analysed my MVP, and gave me ideas on pricing and features.

To build the app out I have used React Native (it’s far from perfect, but is familiar for me). I used Expo on top of it, which basically makes it very quick to set up. Supabase for the backend, as it’s not too complex, and also used it for auth.

In this YouTube video, I demo how you can get a mobile app set up in a few minutes, if you’ve thought about building your own.

I also vlog the process of starting to make the app whilst I work from Bali and the next edition will be from Brazil.

I wanted to build a waitlist site for the app, so I could collect emails. I first used Framer and Formspark, but the experience wasn’t great.

So just took an old site I built from scratch using Next.js, used Supabase and Resend to send emails.

So barely any costs up front so far, only Supabase and the coding agents, and buying the domain.

The biggest blocker for me right now is time. Especially when I move around (writing this from Brazil).

It’s just hard to find time so I’ve been finding small gaps in my day, to get Cursor started and start building.

The other big issue I’ve had so far, hasn’t been the building, but the design. AI generated designs suck. I want it to feel like an app, you love and want to spend time in. I like a retro, pixelated feel.

In my content I sometimes have a retro computer aesthetic, so looking for the same in my app.

This is the second version of the logo, matching this pixelated feel, and the idea of a rubik's cube, matches someone with many different interests.

But we’re in a world where I can build something that would have taken me months/years previously in a few weeks.

Distribution is the issue now. I aim to market the app by building in public. Sharing what I’m learning here, on my YouTube, and short form content.

I just finished Rio Carnival, which was one of my favourite travel experiences I’ve ever had. It was a celebration of life, and Brazilians say the year only starts after Carnival, so time to lock in and start building.

Maybe this can inspire you guys to start.

Waitlist for the app is here if you’d like to join

https://www.polymathapp.net/

I’ll be sharing more over the next months on the process, right here.

Talk soon

A

👾

p.s new video on youtube below has just dropped, on what tech careers I recommend in 2026

Hey,

In this one I’m going to share some Cursor and Claude code hacks I wish I knew earlier (and a personal update at the end).

Like everyone else, I’ve seen the role of a programmer dramatically shift in the last year.

Today, one of the core skills you need to get to grips with, is how to get the most out of AI coding assistants, agents and tools. You’ve got some people who are picking it up straight away.

Whilst others are clinging onto manual coding, and seem a bit in denial. Soon, their employers will get onboard and AI coding will be the norm. So best learn about this stuff now I say.

It doesn’t mean you don’t need to learn coding anymore. You will. But for now just treat AI assisted coding as a new set of skills to learn (e.g context, memory, prompting). Alongside everything else 😅

I’ve been starting to build my own mobile app over the last month (I’ll share more of it on here soon). And have used most of these coding assistants.

As a tech content creator I randomly get sent free credits from them, so tested lots of them at this point.

A turning point for me, was earlier in the year when I used Devin.ai by Cognition (yep, that one). It was the first time I’d ever seen agents at work. I was like, okay, yep, I see where this is going.

Time to get onboard and learn how these work. I think we’re gonna be the pilot of these things very soon, the role will broaden out to take on more tasks, and will evolve with people having a ‘T shaped skill set’.

Next newsletter post/YouTube video will focus on this concept, and how you can prepare.

I’ve experimented a bunch, and this is what I’ve learnt using the two most popular right now, Claude Code and Cursor (which you can just use together).

1. Firstly, don’t be a snob

‘If you write code with Al you’re gonna be unemployable in the future!’
Not correct. This is now a core skill to learn. You can do both. Code deeply, understand it, and use Al critically and intelligently. Also, it can be fun to build quickly.

2. Number one mistake people make

Not using plan mode. As you will be coding less, the price is that you have to plan more. Use plan mode. Otherwise it’s just vibes. Al coding is fast, but you’ll go fast in the wrong direction without planning it first.

Which will cost $£€. Getting the AI to do this, means it will correct itself and find edge cases you hadn’t even thought of. This is where you use ‘ultrathink’ (Claude), which is more expensive, but where the tokens are worth using.

3. The Mindset. Pair, don’t prompt

Give it context, ask why, review decisions, and learn together. Treat it like pair programming. Doing it mindlessly is cheating your future self out of growth. Also review things.

My mantra with AI coding which I always think of, is this.
When you are working for a company, their primary focus is not your growth and development. Their goal is to get a product out, and make money from it. So always have that in mind, use their time, to learn.

4. Learn from your rabbit holes

Errors are constant in programming. When I started, I used to panic when I’d get one, but years of training later when I see an error now, I say ‘interesting’ in my head.

That’s the shift into becoming a problem solver (my previous jobs in marketing, teaching and sales were not problem solver types roles, but it is a skill you learn).

With AI, learn from rabbit holes you go down solving bugs. Summarise, document the root cause and solution, so we don’t have to go through it again, key part of contextual engineering. So after a long debugging session, get the AI to learn how it solved the error.

5. If your design sucks

Do this. Steal designs. Go on a site like Mobbin. Take a screenshot of a site/app design you like. Say I want to update the design using this image.

But, ask it to use the colour scheme/font only from the design (so it doesn’t go crazy, change it all and maybe you hit the red error screen of doom).

6. Treat Al Like an ADHD Junior Dev

Treat Al like an ADHD junior dev. Ok granted, it’s fast. But needs constant guidance, tight context, and very specific tasks.

Otherwise it will rush, guess and (confidently) take you to error hell. LLM’s work by trying to fill in the blanks (with math) to please you, your goal is to make these blanks better.

7. Compound Engineering

Like money, your codebase compounds. Each iteration should make your Al smarter. Use Claude.md and Cursor.rules. Start basic, and add things that come up again and again (don’t put too much in, can bloat the context window).

But this idea of helping the AI with context is fundamental, so this is a key part of your role…in all this. Honestly, as a Senior dev, I’m still getting used to it.

8. Use MCP servers

Think of these like a "USB-C port" for AI to connect to the real world. You can pull live data, api’s, documentation etc into your project.

A good one is Context 7, which will generate context with up-to-date documentation for LLMs and AI code editors.

In general these can have security risks, for example the Supabase one is good, but just think, you’re giving it a hell of a lot of access (worst case scenario it deletes your database 💀) but highly unlikely, and worth the trade offs for most projects.

9. Al-generated code is not free

Use cheaper models for quick edits, reserve Ultrathink / Opus for hard problems, and stop agents early when they drift. A $20 Cursor + $20 Claude plan goes far if you’re intentional.

10. Be Careful in Production

AI tools are powerful but can make unsafe changes (e.g., DB schema). Always review before deploying.

This is a non negotiable, it’s a risky game if you are just pressing continue, without understanding and you are cheating yourself out of learning.

Also goes without saying, commit early and often.

If you liked this, gonna be releasing a full youtube video with Claude Code and Cursor hacks. In the meantime, if you’re looking to build an app, my latest video gives you a complete blueprint of what you need to do 👇🏼

Personal update

2025 was the most successful year of my life. I feel I’ve grown a lot. Although it wasn’t all plain sailing (😅) as I went through a break up. I did however, visit some incredible countries like Jordan, Iceland, Oman, Bali, Armenia, Portugal, Turkey.

Had loads of life affirming experiences. Highlight was sleeping outside, under a cave in the Wadi Rum desert, looking up and going asleep in the middle of nowhere seeing the milky way from my bed.

That’s the kind of sh$t that makes you fall in love with life again, and motivate you to work harder, so you can do more of it.

Also, I met people who follow me for the FIRST TIME. In Porto I had lunch with two locals, who were like, ‘is this you’ and pointed a phone at me (whilst I was coding in a cafe).

In Istanbul I hosted a meetup which was fun, life affirming and also surreal as loads of people came. In Bali I bumped into people, and had dinners with a few. And after 2 days of flying and jetlagged to hell, a girl in Bangkok ran up to me at a hotel I was in saying she follows me, and I could not match her enthusiasm.

But I loved every interaction, and it reminds me why I do this. My goal is to try and share the things I love about tech, also weave in my personal story at times too.

I ended the year working in probably the most popular digital nomad spot in the world right now, Bali. Lots of remote workers here. It feels like a bubble of cheap food, beautiful people and amazing cafes.

But also feels crazy busy at times, and like the place is changing to cater only for people working remotely. But I had fun, definitely feels like a life hack living there.

This year I’m heading to Rio Carnival to start the year 🇧🇷😅

Anyway, thanks for reading and supporting my content this last year. Sincerely, it means a lot and I shall see you in the next one.

Thanks for reading

A 👾

This post is a collection of things I wish I knew at the start of my tech career on my journey from junior to senior, having only started coding at 30.

It’s been one of the most popular series I’ve made on my @andrewcodesmith account. I’ve collected all of the posts together, with about 13 nuggets of wisdom. These are things I’ve learned as an engineer, things I learnt as a recruiter, or ideas that have always stuck with me.

I’m confident you’ll learn something from this post.

If any of this resonates or if you have questions, drop a comment on Substack.

I try to respond to every single one.

Things I wish I knew on my first day in tech

👾 It’s all figure-out-able

It’s not what you know, it’s how you can find out what you don’t know. Tech taught me to calmly approach each problem step by step, and don’t freak out if you don’t know it. It’s okay to not know, and others will help you, which is a metaphor for life

👾 ‘I don’t know, but I’ll find out’

This is the winning mindset for any technical career. If you can be the type of person who adopts this mindset to others. The world is your oyster, as management and shareholders love this person, and like to promote them.

👾 Deadlines aren’t real

If you need longer to do a good job, ask for it. Deadlines are made by people who usually don’t have a great idea of what it actually takes, and they are flexible, not real…things. Just communicate it well.

👾 Avoid overworking at the start of a new job

This sets a dangerous precedent. Just work hard consistently and steadily. It’s human nature to want to impress, but best avoid setting unrealistic expectations in your first few weeks.

👾 The number one skill in tech

Learning how to interview well, really is the number one skill in the technology industry. See my previous blog about how you can do this. One thing I learnt in recruiting for 4 years, is that if it’s a choice between a better talker, and someone who is 10%, 20% even 30% better technically, the talker wins.

👾 Never talk down to less technical people

The corporate world can be brutal, try and make it a bit nicer and don’t be a smart ass. If you are getting into these type of confrontations, focus more on how you can explain technical concepts better.

👾 Don’t ramble during standups

If you get the slightest hint you do, try writing down what you want to say. It’s really energy sapping for all parties if you’re that one person who rambles off on tangents.

👾 Job security is dead

Job security stopped existing in tech a few years ago. Ironically now, start ups arguably have more job security than big tech. You don’t owe any corporation loyalty. Build up an emergency fund, tech is high risk, high reward, but in my opinion totally worth it.

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Check out Airia for free and get involved in the AI agent boom.

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👾 Job hop

No skill, language, technology will earn you more money than changing jobs. Treat it like a game and especially in the junior to mid range. Avoid staying in the same place for 2 years.

👾 First 2 years are hard

Everything gets easier after the first 2 years. oh boy, mine was rough. Then it randomly gets easier. So you’ve got to suffer, not quit and avoid getting fired. Get through those and you’re good pretty much

👾 If you look it up, write it down

Build a second brain. Not AI. Your own thoughts, ideas, concepts written in a way you will read 2 years later and understand. A repository of everything you’ve learnt in language that makes sense to you. I did this.

👾 Either be earning or learning

You should either be earning a lot of money, or learning something that’s a high value skill. If you’re doing neither, it’s time to leave. The sweet spot is both.

👾 Learn everything at a high level early

Don’t rush into your specialism (whatever that is). First, get an idea of the whole thing. You don’t need to be an expert, but you should know the software development life cycle, and what a tech company is made up of. What is CI/CD? What are the different roles in tech? How does the cloud work?

Which is your favourite?

Do you have more to add?

Comment below. Legit would love to hear them.

Personal Update

I’m writing this from Bangkok 🇹🇭

One of the best places to work from remotely in the world right now (it’s number one on ‘Nomadlist’ the most popular site to log the best locations to work remotely from). I found a free co working space (you just pay for a coffee and get 4 hours wifi) in a skyscraper called ‘Paper plane project’. Definitely recommend it if you get there.

In Thailand, a mouth watering meal can be under $2, you can get around on moto taxis for just over $1. It’s very safe, you can get by with English and it’s one of the funnest cities in the world.

Great first stop if you want to work as a digital nomad, or if you’re building a startup and want to spend as little money as possible, whilst you build it.

Next up, Bali 🇮🇩

If anyone is going to be there, drop me a msg on Instagram. I did a meetup in Istanbul recently, and it was epic meeting about 40 people who follow me.

Latest YouTube video was a deep dive into every single data structure, explained in a simple, no BS way. Check it out here.

Anyway, I shall see you in the next one, take care

A 👾

Writing this from the UK, about to work remotely from Istanbul and Tbilisi for the next 2 months (never been to either before so comment on this post if you have any recommendations).

This month I’ve been learning Postgres, to build full stack apps with PERN (Postgres, Express, React and Node). It’s reinforced to me how much more feasible it is nowadays to become a full stack programmer. Up until 2 years ago I was kinda suspicious of this term. I still believe, it professionally better to work on one area of the stack (full stack developers are worked to death by some startups, and are paid only marginally more, but do have more job security).

I’ve also been dabbling in ethical hacking (for fun). The areas I find the most fun in the technology industry, programming, UX/design and ethical hacking. I met a guy last year who’d been a digital nomad for over a decade, and he made a living finding bug bounties for WordPress sites. He was so engrossed in it, the thrill of trying to hack into something. It paid well too. I think I like these areas, as they allow you to get into the ‘flow state’, and lose track of time, as you are so absorbed in the work. I spent my 20’s in mindless sales and marketing roles, so I value work that allows you get to into that flow.

The number one tech skill to learn, and how to learn it.

If you had asked me this 2 years ago, the answer would have been different.

As of today, these skills stand out, but aren’t number one.

• Python - chosen language of AI/ML, backend, data science, AI agents.

• React - I honestly didn’t think React would still be so dominant. I thought in 2021, that it was not a good idea to get too attached to a front end framework, as they switched a lot. But it’s still here. You could say Next.js. I use it. But I feel they are becoming too tightly coupled with Vercel (avoid vendor lock in).

• DevOps/platform engineering - low key one of the best areas right now. Suits people who come from a developer background.

• Linux - one of those foundational skills which is needed in so many areas, like Cybersecurity.

• Data Science - AI has taken this area to new heights.

• MERN stack - wait…what? I mean basically any tech stack that allows you to build your own apps. It could be any, but this is the lowest barrier to entry to make an app (don’t even need to know SQL).

• LLM Engineering - with the rise of AI agents, retrieval-augmented generation, and LLM-powered apps, learning how to effectively interface with models is becoming its own discipline. More generally, just adding on AI/ML to whatever skillset you have is a good move right now. I’ve been learning AI/ML for a while. I don’t see how you could regret spending time on this.

• AI tools - have anyone else noticed how the conversation has shifted from business leaders saying ‘learn to program’ to now….‘learn how to use AI tools’.

But I don’t think these are the most valuable.

We are entering a new era, of outsourcing and automation. I don’t think you can count on a particular skill or technology like you used to be able to.

and the winner is…….Going into the office

(okay that was a joke).

It’s two things.

1) The ability to learn/adapt

2) soft skills (but I’ll break down what this actually means)

Below is a tangible step by step guide with actual resources on how to learn these skills.

1) The ability to learn new things.

• Learn Go, Learn Kubernetes. Nope. Be the type of person that can stay cool and adapt, when a company has a new project, and you have the technical skill/appetite to handle what technology they are using. Things are changing so much, I think it’s a fools errand to cling onto your tech stack. Be adaptable enough so that you can learn anything.

• This means harnessing your problem solving ability. Don’t become a copy and paste AI monkey (you can still use AI a lot, whilst still learning and growing). If you understand the fundamentals of your area, switching between tech stacks is waaayyy easier. Remember a company is paying you to deliver, but use their time to learn.
  I want to repeat this. You can use AI, and learn and develop. It’s the perfect tutor, ask it questions, and go deeper to understand it (whilst it generates your code). But if you use it the wrong way, you’re really screwing yourself over. You will progress quickly as a junior, but struggle at the mid-level.

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2) Soft Skills and how to actually get better at them

This is a generic term thrown around, without explanation of how you actually improve it. I was very shy and introverted at university/college, and this is how I define soft skills (and how I improved them).

• Ability to articulate yourself well.

• You can initiate small talk well. Or at least, you’re not making video calls awkward.

• Emotional intelligence.

• Avoid being confrontational, egotistical, making work situations unnecessarily confrontational (some people have trauma which manifests as not being able to take advice/feedback from authority figures)

• Ability to translate technical jargon to a nontechnical audience (key in tech).

• Can communicate well, with decent story telling. How to judge this? when you are telling a story, do peoples eyes drift off?

How I improved (ain’t claiming I’m Tony Robbins over here, but I’ve improved)

• Record yourself in conversations
(with the other person’s consent). How do you sound? I went through a phase of doing this. It was actually painful. I learnt my voice was monotone, too quiet, and I wasn’t projecting my voice. I read books, listened to audiobooks (Vocal Awareness). But recording myself for YouTube videos was the biggest improvement. When you’re 40 minutes into editing, listening to your ass bumble over your words, you remember it next time. Record yourself speaking, and ask for feedback. Don’t ask your friends. There are communities on Reddit/Discord that will give you honest feedback.
  Notice, how newsreaders, or content creators you like, sound. Don’t fake anything. I’m not saying change your personality, keep your weirdness, but try and bring yourself out of your shell more. Experiment.

• Don’t listen to anyone who says ‘just be yourself’
  this is bad advice. The outer shell you present to the world might be the result of a million things and your upbringing. Maybe it isn’t the passionate and curious, engaged person you are inside. Learn how to present that to the world.

• Body language/posture
  There’s a really good book called ‘What every Body is saying’. It will highlight how important body language is to you. What you say, isn’t actually that important, it’s how you say it. Stand up tall, look people in the eye, and don’t be afraid to take up your own space in the world. Smile, one of the most powerful things you can do, particularly for interviews.

• Small talk
  I feel this comes with life experience, but at the start of an interview, practice trying to break the ice. It makes everyone feel at ease. I always comment on something in the background on a video call. Read the book ‘How to win friends and influence people’. It’s an old but powerful book. I read it years ago but still think about it. Small things, like when you meet someone who is confident, or charismatic, and they remember your name, and then repeat it a few times in a conversation. Those small gestures are gold, and traits of charismatic and confident people.

• Emotional maturity
  If you regularly snap at people and this bleeds into your professional life, or if you suffer from anxiety. I write suffer, as some anxiety is healthy. I had chronic low level anxiety for around 6 months in 2018. Which was the result of working in a corporate sales job I detested. I started meditation, and have done it every day (ish) for 7 years since. I had not had that anxiety since. Maybe this came with getting older. Meditation isn’t for everyone, but it’s free, so why not try it? Do a 50 day course, or get an app (if you try it on your own you’ll end up thinking about dinner, code or your late pet hamster that died when you found it under the oven were 4 years old, for the whole session).

• Treat it like a science
  Like you would learn programming, learn how to master all this. It’s all teachable. You might feel uncomfortable, but it will benefit your career and personal life, and you will earn a lot more money in your career if you do this.

Before I was a Software Engineer, I worked as a recruiter. I placed hundreds of people in jobs, and used to speak to about 50 people a day on the phone. There were times I would pick up the phone, and a candidate would just make the conversation easy. They weren’t necessarily funny or charming. They were just on point with their soft skills. And it doesn’t look the same for everyone.

Those people, they never were unemployed for long. They would end up with numerous offers, creating a bidding war and landing the best paid roles in their profession. You don’t have to turn yourself into some weird ass guy who slaps peoples backs, is too loud and laughs at every joke. It’s just a practice of improving yourself so you can communicate your thoughts and ideas to the world better.

Anyway. If any of this resonated, let me know below.

Latest YouTube video is below (featuring advice on how to get into tech in 2025), and I shall see you in the next one.

A 👾

This month is more of a collection of random thoughts - things I’ve been learning, where I’m working as a digital nomad, and a few ideas I’ve had lately. I’m writing this from Porto, Portugal during a power cut.

Current POV as I write this -

If any of this resonates - or if you have questions - drop a comment on Substack. I try to respond to every single one.

What I’ve Been Learning

I’ve been diving into Postgres and SQL recently. When I started in 2020, I remember reading that SQL was becoming obsolete - some even said it was “dying.” Absolute rubbish. It’s one of the easiest tools to pick up and can instantly make you more valuable to most companies.

With SQL, a handful of queries can take you surprisingly far. Then, as you encounter more complex problems, you’ll naturally pick up advanced use cases—and learn the common pitfalls to avoid.

Where I’ve Been Working Remotely

I’m using remote work as an opportunity to see as much of the world as I can (and tech is the best industry to work remotely, with coding still the number one remote skill). I spent some time working in Iceland last month.

Iceland is one of the most beautiful places in the world, feels like Mars, great internet, solid infrastructure, everyone speaks English. But there’s virtually no digital nomad/remote worker scene, and it’s expensive as hell.

Probably heading to Turkey, Cyprus, and Asia later this year. If you're working from anywhere interesting, let me know.

What I’ve Been Thinking About

I’ve given up trying to keep track of “the best model for coding.” It still blows my mind how easy it is to build a CRUD app today.

But I’ve also been thinking about how tough it must be for beginners to learn deeply in the AI era, when every answer is just a click away.

Lately, I’ve been coding alone for more strategic or system design tasks. But for lower-level stuff or things I already know, I lean on AI. If you outsource your thinking in the name of productivity, it’ll make your job way harder when you hit the mid-level stage.

Best Tech Purchase I’ve Made Recently

I’ve been using the large wooden laptop stand below (there are loads on Amazon), as sometimes I work…in bed.

If you work from home, it’s way too easy to end up hunched over your laptop like a shrimp 🍤 I’ve got loads of these laptop stands, big and small portable ones that fold up (it can be awkward getting a huge one out in a cafe).

Even if you only work from a laptop in cafe hunched over for a few hours, it does add up, and puts a strain on your neck. Get one! and just keep it in your bag, they only cost like $10.

Hack to Learn Tech Concepts

Use prompts to help you learn, not replace your thinking.

As a beginner, a great hack is to start your learning session by telling the LLM that you're a beginner and want to understand things deeply. It’ll usually slow down, explain more clearly, and act like a tutor - while still encouraging problem solving (which is the #1 skill you need to build in tech).

Not sure what project to work on? Try prompting:
“Act as a senior software engineer in Python/JS and design a complex coding challenge that will test my knowledge.”

The Future of Coding and What Developer Work Will Look Like in 2030

I made a video on how I see the role evolving, how to prepare for it, and what new roles might emerge with AI. I’d read way too many bad takes from people who’ve never seen a professional codebase in their life- so this is my take on what devs could actually be doing by 2030.

Check it out.

See you in the next one,
A 👾

Hey 👋

Welcome to the first newsletter. I’ll be posting about tech, programming and travelling the world as a Software Engineer and digital nomad. New tech I’m learning, random sh$t I come across, and ideas/things I’ve been thinking about.

I’m currently freezing my ass off at home in England for the next few weeks, having been in South America for the end of 2024.

Anyway, Software Engineers are screwed right? If most code nowadays is AI generated.

Not quite.

console.log('Story time first')

In 2017 I worked as a recruiter.

I recruited in the Swiss pharmaceutical industry (soul was sold, but I quit after making the money I wanted). In my first weeks as a recruiter, my goal was to get new jobs to fill, and find candidates to fill those jobs (the job of a recruiter basically). I spent the first few weeks talking to candidates in my market. Having talked to a load of candidates, and hiring managers, I slowly discovered something.

The job that was my specialism, my ‘niche’, was slowly becoming automated, and jobs were also getting outsourced to India. I was seeing it right before my eyes. Jobs were disappearing, and junior roles no longer existed. My workaround as a recruiter was to branch out to other markets and countries.

What did candidates do?

How did junior candidates enter the field?

What did recruiters like myself do?

They just adapted, and their roles evolved. No great firing happened. Tasks were replaced, but jobs weren’t.

If this sounds familiar, it has been speculated as a consequence of the AI revolution for Software Engineers.

Job markets are unpredictable, but they evolve and adapt. Talent, responsibilities and tasks change.

The job market I was recruiting in became more generalist, and the role of a junior didn’t exist anymore. But the pathways were just different to what they were in the past. Rather than juniors, they trained in a different area. Then once they reached mid level, they switched.

Job markets are impossible to predict though, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. At best we can do a calculated guess (what you’re reading right now).

Most developers are learning junkies and will just evolve with the role.

There will be a lot of disruption, but technology is change. It’s what you signed up for, and it’s what makes it so exciting to work in.

Here are some general trends I think are worth keeping an eye on, along with some opportunities.

Rather than being scared for your job, look for opportunities. (I’m purposely not considering AGI, as if that happens, we’ll be in a totally different world).

Here are some high-level concepts I’ve been thinking about a lot.

🤖 Totally new roles - as Andrew Ng speculated recently, that he thinks we’ll see new jobs like AI Product Managers. “The demand for good AI Product Managers will be huge. In addition to growing AI Product Management as a discipline, perhaps some engineers will also end up doing more product management work.” This makes sense since engineers already have a deep understanding of software. This is one example of new roles, which people likely jump into. Not because they have to, but because of the opportunity.

🤖 Less non technical staff - non technical PM’s, non technical recruiters. In general, non technical people will be less and less relevant. The harsh reality is that there’s a limit to how much value you can add, if you aren’t technical within a team.

🤖 Full stack - specialisation is not going anywhere for the time being (and should be your focus as a junior). In the longer term, the idea of becoming a full stack developer will be more realistic/expected.

🤖 CTO type role - In the longer term, the workflow will be. You work with the AI (agents) to tweak *it’s* code, maintain it and work to translate business needs into a product. Large bloated development teams will become less common (but there will be more software teams in the world, they’ll just be smaller). Freelance developers will do well.

🤖 Importance of UX/UI/Front End - How users interact with their favourite AI is going to be crucial. It could be worth billions in some cases. Companies will pay a lot of money if users find their AI beautiful, intuitive, and easy to use. If you are a front end dev, now is a great time to diversify. Learning UX or back end, will put you in another league (don’t have to be an expert, just being able to help out when needed).

🤖 Your ability to read and understand code will be more important than writing code. Gradually it becomes a more generalist discipline with less routine tasks and fewer segmented specialisms. A good example is how in 2020 when I started in tech. You could be hired on HTML/CSS and JS, and only do front end. Now it’s common to see cloud certifications as essential, as the role has consumed other specialities.

🤖 Oversaturation of AI/ML Engineers. When a job is voted ‘number 1 in the world’, years later it usually gets crowded. There is a huge demand right now, and salaries are crazy high, but with the amount of people studying, planning to enter this field, it will level out. The same happened in 2021 with blockchain. This shouldn’t put you off, just be aware that what’s hot now, likely won’t be in 2030. So it’s better to focus on what you are interested in, rather than chasing what’s hot. (I know developers who were in backend, then went to blockchain, now moving to AI. This can actually hurt your career, as you’re constantly chasing the shiny new thing).

🤖 Architecture skills, and greater general focus on performance, reliability, sustainability and security over traditional programming.

🤖 Cybersecurity and software development merging together. Terrible/buggy generative AI code = greater emphasis on security. One of the best paid areas of Cybersecurity is AppSec (devs with a few years exp who want to work in cyber). A relatively new field that grew from a focus on adding security to the development process.

🤖 Shift from ‘knowledge worker’ to someone who can find information well. High level problem-solving at all points of the software development lifecycle. Rather than just being a ‘code monkey’.

🤖 Loads of opportunities in AI, internet of things, virtual reality/AR, blockchain not just your typical mobile app/website builds.

🤖 Data, lots of data. We’re entering an irreversible shift towards data driven software. Getting an understanding of data science and machine learning, is a wise move.

🤖 Soft skills - getting closer to the ‘talking jobs’ in tech—are often the most lucrative paths.

Evolution is natural, software is (still) eating up the world, and there will be an abundance of opportunities for ‘tech literate’ people. Probably the most reliable resource to see what skills are going to be valuable in the next years, is the The World Economic Forum, Jobs Of Tomorrow report. It emphasises one of the key skills in the next decade, is going to be technology skills/technological literacy.

SO WHAT SHOULD I DO?!

Don’t pressurise yourself into thinking you need to learn it all. Focus on the one thing, that will level you up. Also keep an eye job listings to see what employers are now asking for. That’s what they call being adaptable.

Being adaptable will be key (but most devs are learning junkies, so will be fine).

Don’t freak out, just learn when you need to, and if you see an opportunity, and it excites you, go for it.

See you in the next one

A 👾

P.S. – New YouTube video on learning Data Structures & Algorithms is out now.