Before writing this post, I had been documenting what I learned while using AWS. Before that, I was researching and organizing notes on how to build a clean Switch component with accessibility in mind. Like many developers who actively run a blog, I also had plenty of topics piled up.

Time passed. AI kept getting better. As a developer, a lot of my convictions and feelings were shaken. In the end, all those drafts were shoved into an archive folder, and nothing had been posted on my blog for months.

Then one day, while feeling unsettled as usual by how impressively AI was performing, I decided to sort out these worries and thoughts. For the first time in a long while, I turned off AI autocomplete tools and terminal coding assistants and tried to put down my thoughts as they were. And even then, I caught myself reaching for the Tab key out of habit. Or maybe even Tab-key autocomplete itself now feels like a habit from a fading era. These days, the norm is to avoid opening the IDE at all, or at least to ask an AI tool to write things instead of pressing Tab yourself.

Beginning

What will happen to the job of being a developer? Whenever developers gather, they talk about AI's progress and losing motivation to develop. I've had those conversations with friends many times too. Maybe that was even more true because most people around me were the kind who had invested a lot of effort into development and the wide range of skills expected of developers.

But who knows the future? Plenty of people are already out there talking about the future they imagine. And no matter how famous someone is or how convincing they sound, it doesn't mean much. There is always another equally famous person saying the opposite. I don't want to talk as if I alone know a future that no one truly knows.

I just found myself thinking about why I started developing in the first place, and how I ended up here. And what I had tried to believe in all this time. So I'm writing down the thoughts passing through my head here. There probably isn't any conclusion or answer, but simply putting them down may give me something to look back on later.

On Becoming a Developer

I became a developer by following the coolest people I had ever seen. Developers were the first people who showed me that someone could talk about their work with shining eyes. I only realized later, after I had already become a developer, that people in other fields could have that same sparkle too. Even so, I think I was lucky that at the point when I had to choose a path, I got to meet and follow people like that in at least one field.

I've made many choices in life that I regret, but even now, with the profession itself feeling uncertain, I have never once regretted following developers. If I went back to that time under the same circumstances, I would make the same choice. It was a decision to join the coolest group I could reach at that point. I thought it was the best choice I could make then, and I still think something similar now.

After entering this field, I was fortunate enough to meet many good people. Being with them made me realize that what I was doing mattered much less than what kind of passion and momentum I was riding. Whether we were studying computer science, talking about manga, digging through data, or studying math, being around people whose eyes lit up gave me energy. Whatever it was, I felt I could trust that being with them was the right thing.

So I am still in that current. The coolest people I got to be around are here. By following them, a mechanical engineering student returning from military leave who knew no one and nothing made it this far. I've become someone I couldn't have imagined even five years ago. And yes, I've also learned that coming face to face with something unimaginable is not always a good thing. Even so, I hope I keep living by following people into unknown roads. Because I believe that if I stay with the coolest people, something will happen.

The Mindset I Want to Keep

There are not that many times in life when a person makes a huge choice, the kind that can shake the course of their whole life. If someone were constantly making life-upending choices, I think that would be strange in its own way.

That means the rest of life is mostly spent living with those major choices, taking responsibility for them, and trying to push their outcomes, however slightly, in a better direction. And when I look back at the big decisions I've made, I don't really regret them. I do have the obvious regrets, like wishing I had worked harder, but in terms of direction, I would make the same choices even if I could turn back time.

So then, what exactly am I trembling over? What am I so afraid of?

Of course I'm afraid that AI will advance and replace me. I'm afraid I won't be able to answer, honestly and convincingly, the cruel question of why I am better than AI. I think I'm someone who has worked hard to keep up and to do well, but even so, that fear remains.

But what could I have done, when there wasn't any better-looking option given to me? Suppose it turns out that AI replacing jobs related to mechanical engineering is far harder than replacing developers. Even then, I wouldn't regret leaving mechanical engineering. Having a job that can survive AI is not the whole of life.

I don't think the direction I chose for my life was wrong. I did my best to choose a direction. I followed these amazing people, and together with them I tried many things with effort. Within my field of view, I was with the people who seemed the coolest, sharpest, smartest, and quickest to adapt to the world. If despite all that, whether because of AI or something else, I still have no choice but to fail under the waves of the times, then maybe I should simply accept being swept away. Because I still did the best I could.

If surviving required me to have coded two more hours every single day, then yes, I would regret my past and beat my chest wishing I had worked harder. But if the future is one where being a developer itself collapses, is there really any reason to regret it? If the destiny of the brightest group of people I ever saw is simply to decline and die out, then that is what it is.

On Conviction and Excellence

The excellent people I've seen all had strong conviction. No matter what others said, they clearly had something they wanted to protect and immerse themselves in. Personally, I think a great deal of a person's growth comes from how far they can push and preserve that conviction, and how long they can endure with it.

I entered computer science a little later in life. And fortunately, I managed to get at least one foot inside the fence of a student group full of smart people. Because of that, I was able to watch truly smart juniors grow from their freshman year onward. When they didn't even know Python yet, I was already developing, so at first I was clearly ahead of them. But at some point, many of them overtook me. Watching that, I had to spend a long time painfully wondering what exactly was different between them and me.

At first, I thought it was because they were simply smarter. But were they really overwhelmingly more intelligent than me? Maybe some of them were a bit smarter. But are there really five geniuses in a single Sogang University class year whose talent is so extraordinary that it can completely crush another person's effort? Of course not. I have seen people like that, but they are not common. In fact, even the most skilled person I ever saw didn't feel overwhelmingly superior in raw intelligence alone.

As time passed and I approached graduation, I came to think that producing those kinds of results wasn't just a matter of innate talent. Of course talent matters. It would be absurd to say it doesn't. But more than that, I think it comes from calmness, mental composure, and the steadfastness to protect your own mind and push forward with your convictions no matter what others say.

I lived in a hurry, conscious of my age. I enjoyed studying algorithms, but I also scattered my attention across major classes, extracurricular activities, and interview prep. During that time, my juniors didn't worry about those things as much and instead dug into what they wanted to do. And in time, each of them found their own success. The circumstances we were given were different, so some of it couldn't be helped, but if you look only at the outcome, the ones who pushed themselves won.

So I think ability is shaped by how deeply someone immerses themselves in their convictions, and how much time of immersion they manage to compound. I can't prove it, but I believe it. Stubbornness that never bends can be a problem too, but if there is nothing at all you want to dive into regardless of what others say, then there is nothing you can truly achieve either.

Something Beyond Speed

Even before the AI era, there were plenty of developers whose strength was making things quickly. From my experience, there seemed to be more of those people in frontend, which is my field. I admired how they could just throw something together in no time, and in the pre-AI era, that speed was treated as a real skill, so I tried many times to become more like them.

But whenever I tried to become faster, I kept thinking this: "This ability called development speed must have limits. Of course a developer with three years of experience is faster than one with just one year. But does that mean once someone reaches ten years, they can produce a new feature every second? Speed doesn't increase like a linear function. And as years pass and people age, thinking naturally slows down to some extent. So shouldn't we be accumulating something other than speed?" I thought about that for a long time.

Now I've accumulated a little over two years of experience. I still haven't found a concrete answer to what exactly that "something else" is. But whatever it is, I can feel that time spent steadily pursuing what you want gives you something. I feel that as I watch my own changes, and as I look at the people I've met in this field.

There are people who have spent decades in the software industry. People like Rob Pike, one of the creators of Golang, or Anders Hejlsberg, the architect of TypeScript. They were programming back when assembly, Pascal, PL/I, and Fortran—languages whose names now sound unfamiliar to many—were mainstream. And they are still working in this field. Why is that? Is it because they hold knowledge from a bygone era? I don't think that's all it is. Those old languages are barely used now, and there are younger programmers who think and learn faster than they do and cost less to hire.

Maybe it's because years of working in development build up something we might call experience and insight. It may sound laughable in an age obsessed with speed, but I believe that if you endure time well and keep developing steadily, something accumulates. Even before AI, there were many paradigm shifts. At every one of those turning points, was the only option left to older people to admit they had become obsolete and climb into a coffin? Is the only answer for everyone to envy people who are younger and have more flexible brains?

I can't deny that some people were pushed out. But others survived just fine, and some even made extremely valuable use of their past experience. Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to clearly define what separates those two groups. But now I do think, just a little, that if I keep going down this path, maybe with some luck I'll gain something that only accumulates over time. If you don't believe that, then nothing remains.

What Cannot Be Compressed

I don't think what I fear has actually changed all that much in the AI era. Worrying that you'll be replaced if all you do is assigned work was already a common fear long before AI. People in my parents' generation worried about that too. Ideas like "you need your own work" or "you can't depend on your job forever" didn't appear out of nowhere. In the end, it's always a question of what makes up a version of me that is hard to replace.

I've been in this industry for two years. I'm not especially lazy, so I've done a variety of things, from frontend—including React, which was what I first studied—to some backend knowledge as well. But someone more passionate than me might study twelve hours a day and reach my level in one year. In fact, I've seen plenty of people with less experience than me who are much better than I am. There are always people who surpass a required threshold more efficiently and more compactly. And now that we're in the age of AI, that speed may have become even faster.

But there are still experiences and stretches of time that cannot be compressed. Even in an age when so much knowledge, content, and experience is being broken down and made lighter. A twenty-minute movie summary that includes the ending is not the same as watching a masterpiece from beginning to end. Playing a song on YouTube is absolutely not the same as singing along with a crowd at a live show.

If you widen the timescale a little more, can a five-year relationship, even a lukewarm one, really be replaced by an intensely passionate two-year one? There are things you can only learn by being deeply with someone over a long period of time. If a department head in their forties has realized something through life, I don't think that is something a person in their twenties can reach simply by living twice as intensely.

Of course, what we learn through time in life does not map directly onto our ability as developers or employees. But before any other role, everyone is themselves. And what forms that self is not something another person can simply compress faster, but the time deeply lived through life. Any human strength or quality is carved out of that.

I can't boldly claim that this has value for everyone, but at least I try to protect that idea in my own heart. I don't want to be with people who believe everything in the world can be broken down, compressed, turned into a skill, and packed into a smaller space. I can't deny that such a view is grand in its own way, but I feel a sense of distance from people who embrace it without hesitation.

In an Age Where Reaching the Average Is Easy

Anyone can now produce B-tier results with AI. So there is no shortage of people saying everyone should just click a button and start pumping out B-tier work immediately. The truth is, even results at that level used to be uncommon. So the message is to grab that premium quickly while it still exists. People say AI code can't be trusted and AI art still looks awkward, but even that level of code or art was once beyond most people.

But as the cost of things that originally required considerable effort to achieve has fallen, the temptation to stop there has also grown. If it were something you had built up with your own hands, even if it were only C-tier or D-tier, it wouldn't be so easy to throw away. I sometimes make content with AI too, and while the process is definitely fun and the result is decent, I rarely feel much attachment to it or any urge to keep pushing it further.

In the end, I think effort is necessary if you want to grow something with real attachment. People say this all the time, but I want AI to become a tool that amplifies my abilities rather than one that grinds me down. And to do that, I think you need the experience of climbing up from the bottom. Because that is what gives rise to attachment and motivation.

The environment has even improved enormously. I started development by typing out sample code and producing what now looks like garbage, but people learning development today can study from excellent code from the very beginning. The speed at which they can rise has increased tremendously.

I know there are advantages to moving fast by doing what you can right away instead of climbing from the bottom. But surely we aren't going to spend our whole lives using everything for just a day or two for a laugh. Maybe I'm just behind the times, but I still need to place at least one stone with my own hands if I'm going to keep going. If immediate execution is all that matters, then you can just have AI do everything. But if there is not even one thing you can sustain on your own, then what exactly are you living for?

The more sweat you put into achieving something, the more you come to love it. Hardly anyone feels great joy from driving a car carrying a 100kg load. But if you worked hard and eventually got to a 100kg squat, wouldn't that feel deeply satisfying? The weight is the same, but a 100kg squat came from sweating your way up from something much lighter.

Development and Learning

No one can calculate faster than a calculator. No one can draw with the precision of a photograph, and no one can be stronger than a forklift. But people still exercise, learn arithmetic, and draw. Some draw inspiration from those things, and some make a living from them. Even though they are things anyone can learn, and machines do them better. Hardly anyone says we should stop teaching addition just because calculators are faster.

If I may be so bold, I think it's because those things are tools or frameworks for thinking. The more frameworks you have, the more you can do, and the more refined they are, the more distinct you can become.

When I meet people in academia or watch YouTube videos featuring them, I often get the impression that they think deeply. Not always, of course, but often. Why is that? It can't be just because they know a lot. Even before the AI era, knowledge itself was always available to anyone with internet access.

Rather, I think it is because the process of solving problems through study, and learning the ideas that previous generations wrestled with intensely, creates new pathways in their minds. Scholarship is the accumulation of things that did not exist before. By studying it, they take into their minds the insights of that discipline.

I think it is foolish to mock the value of knowledge in front of someone who has developed deep judgment through serious exploration. Imagine ridiculing a historian by saying, "What's the point of history when all the dates and events are already online?" How ugly would that be?

Why should development be any different? People say development skill is meaningless now, but fragmentary knowledge was never the essence to begin with. Whether someone happened to know the name of an internet protocol or an internal DB data structure was indeed a common interview topic, but those things were never important in themselves. The questions existed only because someone who had studied properly would naturally have absorbed them. But it does matter to know through what process the TCP/IP protocol was born, what problem it elegantly solved, and what traces of intense 고민 came before it. At least if you're going to live as a human developer.

I don't want to pretend that I am especially precious or exceptional, or some great developer. Because I'm not. And like many people around me, I feel shaken often, and I genuinely feel that there are many parts of me that can be replaced. I feel FOMO often too. Even Andrej Karpathy, one of OpenAI's founders, says he feels like he's falling behind, so of course I would feel it too.

Still, I try not to approach this as a competition I can win through quantifiable measures. Ability was never determined purely by how much knowledge you hold or how high your numbers are. Instead, I want to make the time I spend, my full experiences, and my learning heavier. If someone asked what really constitutes me, or what causes my actions, or where my strengths come from, there is no way I would point to fragmentary knowledge.

In a World Bounded by What We Can See

I have lied many times. There was a time when I broke up with someone I loved and it felt as if my chest were being torn apart. There was also a moment when I was lying in a hospital recovery bed, in such overwhelming pain that I could do nothing but scream. I have gone through periods of life where I felt so lonely that it seemed I had been left alone in the world. I have also lashed out in rage over trivial things and hurt other people. Truly painful moments, pathetic moments, foolish things I wish I could forget, but moments that carved deep marks into my life.

But am I the only one who has experienced such things? Nearly everyone passes through shameful moments and a few long, shaky-bridge-like stretches in life. And in those moments, each person makes their own choices.

There is no answer key. The marks and wounds left by those choices and that time, the costs each person had to pay, the highest walls they had to face, and the lowest depths they descended to—those things make a person exactly who they are, and that becomes their world. Then they build their life within a world bounded by how much they are able to see.

By luck, I faced walls higher than what my natural abilities might have suggested, and I scraped the bottom of my emotions more than once. So compared with my tiny little bowl, I got to see a wider world. I did gain some abilities from oscillating between those extremes, but more than that, I struggle to protect the words I have come to cherish. In a world overflowing every day with hype about some insanely powerful new tool, I don't want words like self-respect or conviction to become shabby, at least not in my world.

I am an office worker, a computer science major, and someone who has worked hard to build experience. I am also a developer who studied JavaScript seriously and has run a blog with care. I make good use of AI, have done this and that, and so on. But before any of that, I am myself. Not simply my strengths and weaknesses or the knowledge in my head, but the choices I have made and the time I have had to endure. Everyone goes through similar moments, but the different paths chosen there are what form a person.

I've lain in a hospital bed many times. Every time, while getting painkillers and looking back on the time that had passed, I never once blamed myself for not being good enough at something measurable. What I regretted instead was not having lived more fully as myself. I regretted not suffering more, not getting angrier, not challenging more, not breaking apart more, not crying more, not hating people more, and yet still not trying harder to hold onto or protect something. I thought about the times I failed to approach someone more openly, the flowers I didn't go see, the sky I didn't look up at one more time.

So next time, I just have to live in a way that leaves fewer regrets like that. Because all value is ultimately not given from the outside, but defined within the life I live. In the end, I have to protect my own world so that I can succeed as myself and fail as myself. Because the world keeps trying to blur what each of us holds dear.