There are some verticals that I’ve been thinking about for quite some time. Regarding my job, programming, I’ve been feeling lost.
I really hate the AI hype, but it’s visibile that there is going to be a shift in the industry. For the last 5 years I’ve been positioning myself more as an engineering manager and mentor rather than an individual contributor. Current and future software systems seem to expand their capabilities with AI which, honestly, I don’t find interesting. I really have no wish to build stuff. I have a plan to get to know what actually happens with AI by studying Data Science, Machine Learning, Deep Learning and finally genAI. I don’t do that because I enjoy it, mostly. There are glimpses.
I do that because I want to maintan the life I’ve been building based on my income for the last 5-10 years. It’s really tough to change industries when you’re on rent and have any kind of expenses really.
Question is that I don’t know what to do. I haven’t found anything that motivates me to do as a job. In enjoy mentoring people. It’s really awesome feeling that you helped someone achieve what they want in life.
I don’t really care about starting a business. I would only do that if I could clearly see a social impact on that. I don’t care about tech. I care about social impact. I care about working to built a world where we collectively care about what we do. I haven’t lived abroad, but Greece does not seem like a great place to live if you care about stuff working. Stuff does work, sometimes, if you are lucky and happen to fall into someone who cares about what they do.
For some reason, I don’t feel like moving from Greece will change that.
I have hobbies. I spend time with music. It’s often that I wonder if I want to become a musician. I don’t want to put that much presure on it though. I want to experience it as it is, and if I end up feeling confident about it, I would seriously consider it.
However I can only do so much. Reading about AI is a big mental load for me. I have to process and understand quite a bunch of stuff.
I really enjoy learning and playing music. However, due to the stress that I have from work, I spend more time studying for AI rather than playing/studying music.
I feel that I have to double down on something. I feel that I was/am capable on what I’m doing for a living exactly because I spent so much time only thinking about it. I don’t think it’s possible to do something half-assed and be in a position to make a good living out of it, which stresses me a lot.
8 hours of work are a lot. If you add studying for AI, it’s even more. I don’t know if I can do all that and still spend meaningful time and energy with my hobbies.
I would like for this article to have a conclusion but I don’t have one right now. Speak laters.
George