Is Your Job Making You Lazy?

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Hey folks, it is Monday morning. Just headed to CrossFit. We're going to be going to Reddit for a topic today. I guess I should uh probably get my GPS on too. Hold on a sec. Don't want to forget about that so I don't get stuck in traffic. Um the topic though is going to be regarding are you just comfortable at work? Um cuz I think this one's kind of interesting, especially given some of the responses I saw in the thread. Um not because I don't know, not like they were bad or like crazy or anything like that, but I I think I don't know a couple different angles on things. So, with that said, if you're interested in having questions answered in software engineering or career development, just leave them below in the comments. Send a message to dev leader on social media. Let's get to it.

I guess I need my sunglasses, too. One sec. Okay, so the original poster was writing about this kind of saying, "Does anyone else kind of feel this way?" And they're describing their their current situation in their career. So, they're a software developer. They were saying, you know, historically like there's always a really big push for more and more more in software engineering and um kind of sneezed. I stopped myself. Amazing. And uh they were saying that their their manager like historically has been kind of pushing them towards them moving into management. and they're like, you know, I'm just pretty content. There it is. I knew it was going to come back to haunt me. Um, so they said like, you know, I like being a software developer. I like, you know, being in there like coding, doing like hands-on problem solving. They're like, I enjoy that part.

And you know, management kind of seems like, at least at their company, there's like semi-regular turnover and they're just like, I don't know, man. Like, I feel like I'm pretty comfortable doing what I'm doing. Like, good benefits, good pay. I like the work I'm doing. Like, why do I need why more, right? Why why a change? And so, I thought this would be fun to talk about for a few different reasons. like one is because I think you know I think in general there is always this push in software engineering. I'm sure this is this the case for some other careers too, but where it is always more more more um in terms of your career progression and things like that and I've talked about this in other videos but the idea that you know for for many people especially say younger people it might

be the case where you are like you know your career progression is like one of the things you care about most right often that comes with um you know better compens compensation, more responsibility, that kind of stuff. And that is like exciting and motivating. But you know, some different perspective is that maybe that reaches a point where that's not the thing that motivates you anymore. So the thing that I find interesting about that, I guess I feel like we just don't talk about it enough in general. And when I say we, I mean like should be having career conversations with our managers, right? And I think that when you're reflecting on your own career progression, for some individuals, you may very well reach a point where the things that motivated you when you were younger or may I shouldn't even say just younger, like just previously your motivations and stuff will change, right?

Like for example, I always go back to like I work at Microsoft right now and before Microsoft I was at a startup and I just used to work non-stop. I just used to do that and like I I cannot do that with Microsoft. And it's not because Microsoft is different or bad or whatever. It's because now I'm married, right? I have other responsibilities outside of just myself. when I was, you know, fresh out of out of university, like I I literally didn't have other responsibilities, just me and I'd go to the gym. That was my life. So, the things that we value will change, right? So, this person's saying like for where they're at in their life, it's a pretty good mix of things. And there's nothing wrong with that, right? So I I wanted to kind of seed this idea especially with um you know the younger audience that you know there it doesn't have to be perpetually like this pressure that you need to be getting somewhere else.

Although admittedly like especially as managers like perhaps we are pretty bad at that in terms of always trying to push. I feel like that is kind of our responsibility though. We do want you to grow in your careers, right? We want we want you to excel what you're what you're focused on and where you want to go. But I think a lot of the time that where you want to go part, we're assuming is just like more and more growth and responsibility. So, you know, I'm kind of saying this out loud, too, because as managers, we we play a part in that. And maybe at some point for certain individuals were creating a different pressure and they see that as the only way, right? Maybe you're comfortable in your role like this person who wrote this this post on Reddit and um by working with your manager, you're still feeling this pressure of like need to be doing more.

So I wanted to bring up this concept that there is like this idea and I think the I don't know if I'm assuming the naming convention is like relatively standard but it's called like a terminal level. Okay. And I've said this in other videos too, like kind of sporadically, but uh companies will have a concept generally of like a terminal level. And that means a level that should be like it's okay for people to kind of get to and stay there. So for example um you know at a big tech company you might have like a senior software engineering position is okay as a terminal level where they don't actually expect that everyone will get to staff or principal depending on where you are but in fact they're able to say you know what we have really really solid engineers at senior and like We're okay with that.

Like we, you know, if we have a a senior engineer that's been senior for 10 years and they don't have an interest in going beyond that, then that's not a problem. The reason that this is called out is because if you if you think about like a lower level role, imagine that you had a junior developer that was junior for 10 years, right? That's that's probably an issue. it's probably an issue from a company's perspective, right? Like a company wants to be able to invest into their employees. So, they do want to see growth. They want to make sure that as they have employees and these employees that are staying with the company are growing and getting better. So, a junior, again, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but like a junior developer that's junior for 10 years is probably not a great person to keep on board with a company because after 10 years, they're still sort of contributing as a junior.

And you can kind of keep making this argument up to a certain point where people are like, well, we feel actually okay about that. And that's where you might get someone like a senior software engineer where it's like that's totally fine. Like that person could be with the company for many many years. They're operating at a senior level and that's great. And then beyond that, that is actually more reserved for people that are looking to go beyond. We don't expect that everyone's going to want to perform at that level with those responsibilities, right? So, just something to keep in mind that this type of thing exists. Um, and I don't know, like if you haven't heard of that before, I don't want that to sound like scary or anything. I feel like that's actually like that should be a comforting thing to know that um, you know, if you're especially if you're junior in your career, it's like as long as you're continuing to to progress over the years, like no problem.

And you will, right? It's like I think it would be very difficult to not be making progress as a junior developer if you're showing up and and putting in the effort, but there's going to be a point where, you know, like the responsibilities and workload don't just keep scaling until you're like, well, it's impossible. Um, and for some people, you will meet a threshold sooner than others where you're like, I'm pretty comfortable at this level. So terminal levels do exist and um sort of the things that you value may change over time. Like I think both of these are really big factors. The the thing that I I thought was particularly interesting when I was scanning through some of the comments on this one though was like everything I just said feels kind of like okay sure that's not really new.

uh unless you didn't know about the terminal level thing like makes sense priorities are going to change but there were some people that were like hey look like you know that's exactly how I feel feel pretty comfortable you know worked my butt off throughout my career I'm in a good spot and like I don't need more in particular like I don't I don't need more money like sure more money is nice but I don't need that which I think is probably you know realistically that's an amazing spot that most of us would strive to be in, right? To be able to say like, I I feel like I don't need to work any harder for more money because I'm I'm good where I'm at. That's like a that's a good comfort kind of feeling. But this was being offset by some people going, that's how I feel, but I'm concerned about AI, right?

because it's like I I feel like for these engineers that we're talking about, they're actually, you know, they're very far along in their career. One guy was saying he's like 30 years into his career, right? So these are experienced engineers. They're at the point in their career where they're saying I'm pretty comfortable like, you know, I like being hands-on, problem solving, but I don't I don't need to move to management for some other type of challenge. I don't I don't need like even more on my plate. like things are good and these individuals are saying that they're kind of starting to go, hm, am I going to be made redundant? Is AI basically going to change the way we're working so much that like I need to think of a different way?

So there's a kind of a mix of things like uh this redundancy argument and then also like how much time do I need to spend actually like skilling up with AI and these things were kind of mixed into the into the conversation which I thought was again maybe for some you know more junior people you're like well duh like that's what we're all terrified about but I I'm saying this because these are the individuals that are sort much further along in their careers and they're nervous about it or considering it. um because it is potentially I mean when I say potentially I feel like pretty high likelihood it's going to disrupt how they've been working and if they've been comfortable a certain way that comfort might change and I don't mean because like necessarily their job is just going to be replaced by AI but their way of working I feel like everyone's way of working in software engineering is being impacted It's not, this part's not necessarily a bubble.

The AI tools aren't just going to snap our fingers and they're going to disappear tomorrow. So for these people that might have been like, I'm pretty comfortable in my career, it might be a situation where they're like, I think I have to figure out how I'm going to be working with AI tooling and whatever else in the age of AI where they are still relevant. Now, for me, I don't like I don't think they have to do much that's like crazy to to stay like up to date on it. I would just encourage people like, you know, use the tools like like explore them, see how they fit in. And if you're using them and constantly going like nothing works for me, it's always crap. There's no benefit to AI at all. I would say there's probably things you need to improve on still. And I say this, you know, as someone who's been pretty dissatisfied with agents.

I am trying to learn more about agents and like doing, you know, more like headless agent swarm kind of development because the only positive agent experience I've had was with Copilot in GitHub. That's it. Everything else has been terrible. But there are people that are having success with it. So instead of me just blaming like, oh, it's like, you know, I'm just making it someone else's problem. No, like that's probably going to be my problem at some point. So let me take the responsibility now and try figuring it out so that I can improve. And that's kind of my my logic for these individuals that might be nervous or saying like I've been comfortable but now I don't know is like start using these things right like to give you an example the the agent stuff I've talked about where I've been dabbling is not in my day job it's for something called brand ghost that I'm building and like when it wasn't working in the IDE.

It's like cool, like I'm just not going to force myself to do that. Um, and then when co-pilot with poll request came out and I I tried it again with Brand Ghost, I was like, hey, this is working really well. I will use that as part of my development. Um, there's a fire truck. Um, there's more fire trucks. I guess that's to be expected. Sorry, there's a lot of fire trucks and then people are being pretty stupid at the intersection. The light is Oh, that's why the light, you can't see it. Obviously, the light for me is red at the intersection, but it's red for everyone cuz the the firehouse is like like 2 ft away from me. So, it must be controlled. Uh anyway, so like my point is that I'm finding like I'm trying it out and when it works that I'm using it, but I'm not going to keep like for the uh you know the other agent stuff that's not working well for me.

I'm not going to give up on it, but I'm also not going to block my main workflow, right? So, if I'm building in Brand Ghost and trying to use like VS Code with Copilot as an agent, if that's like a crappy experience for me, I'm not going to say, well, I guess I have no choice and I have to go at like a quarter of the speed as normal. No, I'm gonna find my way around uh with the tools, find them to be effective, and then find other things that I can experiment with. So, periodic like a good example is the code.com website, right? Like I vibecoded that with chat GPT. Um and then I used um uh co-pilot with poll request to do more features on the site. These are I just launched that video today on YouTube by the way where I use chat GPT to build the whole thing.

Uh so that's on my main YouTube channel Devleer. And then what I'll be doing though is there's probably some stuff on the code uh website or even my my blog website devleader.ca where I it would be really fun to go see if I can get like a swarm of agents to go build some features. Like to give you an example, something that's a low priority, but I think would be cool is like my website looks like crap. I'm not very like artistic and I think that some things could be more consistent. The code.com website is even even more the case. And I would just love to go have a swarm of agents go see if they can make things more consistent or or follow some other, you know, styling guidelines and stuff from other sites that I like and they can go make that look better without any involvement for me or minimal, right?

Maybe in the beginning to sign off, but like that would be cool. Is it a priority for me at all? Like absolutely not. But what is more of a priority is playing with the technology. So if I can find an opportunity where it's not blocking me, then I'm going to try to incorporate that or explore it at least. So anyway, thought it was interesting that even some of the more, you know, senior people are kind of having this thought around being replaced even though they're very comfortable in their roles. So hope that helps for some perspective, right? like there is sort of this spot in your career where it's not just more more more. Um, and there's a Reddit thread with lots of people that are saying that which is uh I I find that comforting, right, to feel like, hey, at some point for me I'm I don't know if I ever fit into that cuz I I think part of my personality is like was always more more.

But maybe for me uh I will also reach the same point where I'm like this is a good set of challenges. I'm happy and um that's where it's at. So yeah, that's the video for today. Thanks so much for watching and I will see you next time.