I'm 50. I've been coding since the 6th grade. I'm a director for my org but still have to be hands on because of how small we are.

I only ever wanted to code.

I've spent decades developing mentorship, project management, and planning skills. I spent decades learning networking, databases, systems administration, testing, scrum, agile, waterfall, you name it. Every skill was necessary to build good software.

But I only ever wanted to code.

And I've spent decades burning out. I'm burt out on terrible documentation, tedious boiler plate and systems that don't interoperate well. I despise closed ecosystems, dependency management gone mad, terrible programming languages, over abstraction and I have fundamental and philosophical objections to modern software development practices.

I only ever wanted to code and I just couldn't do it anymore. And then AI happened.

This has been liberating for me.

The mountainous pile of terrible documentation written for somebody that has 36 years less experience? Ask the AI to find that one nugget I need.

That horrific mind numbingly tedious boilerplate? Doesn't matter if it's code, xml, yaml, or anything else. Have the AI do the busy work while I think about the bigger picture.

This nodejs npm dependency hell? Let the AI figure it out. Let the AI fix yet another breaking change and I'll review.

That hard to find bug? Let the AI comb through the logs and find the evidence. Present it to me with recommendations for a fix. I'll decide the path forward.

That legacy system nobody remembers? Let the AI reverse engineer it and generate docs and architectural diagrams. Use that to build the replacement strategy.

I've found a passion for active development that I've been missing for a very long time. The AI tools put power back in my hands that this bloated and sloppy industry took from me. Best of all it leverages the skills I've spent decades honing.

I can use the tools to engineer high quality solutions in an environment that has not been conducive to doing so on an individual level for a very long time. That is powerful and very motivating for somebody like me.

But I still fear the future. I fear a future where careless individuals vibe code a giant pile of garbage 10,000x the size of the pile of muck we have today. And those of us who actually try and follow good engineering practices will be right back to where we started: not able to get anything done because we're drowning in a sea of bullshit.

At least until that happens I'm going to be hyper productive and try to build the well engineered future I want to see. I've found my spark again. I hope others can do the same.