Career Advice Every Software Engineer Needs Right Now
Answering engineer questions on AI pressure, career growth, product thinking and impact. Including the production incident I'm glad happened, and the mindset I refuse to accept when things break.
In this video, we cover:
- Whether managers are really demanding more output because of AI
- Balancing fundamentals with AI coding tools and agents early in your career
- Specialist vs generalist and when to lean into each
- Visibility, personal branding and who gets credit for your work
- Product thinking, evaluating impact and what I got wrong about content being king
For software engineers at any level who want honest answers on career strategy in the agent era, from someone doing both engineering and product.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - How to Spot the Next Big Thing
00:03:15 - The Saying I Hate Most
00:04:27 - The Production Mistake I'm Glad I Made
00:07:32 - Are Managers Demanding More Because of AI?
00:13:39 - Learning Fundamentals vs AI Coding Tools
00:19:00 - Will AI Ever Get Good at Distributed Systems?
00:20:51 - Specialist vs Generalist: When to Lean In
00:26:35 - How to Become More Visible in Your Org
00:31:49 - I Was Wrong: Content Isn't King
00:35:03 - Workflows, Priorities and Hiring an Editor
00:37:08 - What Being a Force Multiplier Really Means
00:41:26 - How to Evaluate What's Worth Building
00:45:01 - Product Thinking Without Years of Experience
00:48:13 - Energy Management, Curiosity and Defining Success
00:54:21 - Hair Talk