I'm right there with you. Been in tech for close to 20 years, mostly in SWE roles but last few years of been hybrid SWE/Management.

AI has gutted my passion for software development. It seems people in this industy can be loosely bucketed as follows:

* Went into software because you love writing code to solve problems, where the actual design and writing of said code is as important as the outcome.

* Went into software purely for the outcome, love building things, don't care how it gets built.

At the end of the day I'm a craftsman. I became passionate ~20 years ago about the design and architecture of software, and it fueled a beautiful career. Now, what?

I've spent the last year just throwing prompts at claude and seeing how well it does. Despite having built more in the last year than would have ever been possible before, I feel empty. The outcomes work, they work well, but I didn't write the code. I explained some high level directives to claude, maybe jumped in here or there with a technical angle to fix something when claude got stock... but by and large... the skills I've built over the last 20 years don't really apply anymore.

Yea, I'm not honestly not sure what is going to happen. Your comment about dreaming to be homeless really resonated with me. I either need to find a joy in this AI coding, or I don't know what will happen with me.

My Mom once said something to me as a kid that resonated deeply, even then. Human beings' most valuable skill is adaptation. If you cannot adapt, you will die. As long as I can enjoy this fight, this life, this grind, this mystery... then I will make it my priority to adapt and to reframe my thoughts such that joy is possible again.

It doesn't have to be the end if I don't want it to be. The world will always change, it's on me to change with it.