I just retired after 40 years writing code.

The last year or so wasn’t fun - battling with AI, trying to get it do what I wanted.

For a long time, I thought I’d do a lot of hobby or open source coding when I retired.

I haven’t even tried. I’m not burned out, but find I’ve lost the passion for coding I once had.

Is that AI? Or is it me?

Maybe as my retirement progresses, I can rekindle that passion, but as of now, I don’t miss tech.

Sorry, got to go - my garden needs me :-)

• ChrisMarshallNY

  today at 3:07 PM

  I retired, after 30-some years. Actually, I was forced to retire, by folks that don't think us greyheads should be working. Fortunately, I had the means to retire. Those means had nothing to do with a FIRE strategy. I just saved, lived humbly, and stayed at a job for a couple of decades.

  But I have been doubling down on my tech work. Once the knuckleheads were removed from the soup, the flavor improved markedly. I love this tech stuff.

  Oh, and I have been using AI. It just helped me to find a nasty crashing problem, and I hope that it will help me to determine the best way to fix it.

  • pyrophane

    today at 3:14 PM

    Yeah, I've realized that the things I don't like in tech have everything to do with the culture and politics. When I've been able to work with a small team of people I really like and respect, I've generally been quite content.

• pipes

  today at 3:15 PM

  The battling ai bit you mentioned. This is my life right. Ai is both amazing and shit. I feel like everyone else is running dark factories and producing millions of lines of code and having amazing lives. Meanwhile I am going insane with stress because I've burnt so much time trying to wrangle it on a team I've just joined. My productivity has not been good. I half feel like I am being gas lit by YouTubers and half feel "no I'm just doing it wrong"

• azangru

  today at 3:12 PM

  > battling with AI, trying to get it do what I wanted

  What I am selfishly curious about is: is it possible to remain a software developer, and ignore AI? To write code the same way we did before 2022? I understand that there are many companies in which managers demand more of workforce — but are there still places where people are satisfied to not rush ahead and do business same way they did three or four years ago?

  In other words, is it possible to not battle with AI trying to get it what we want? Were you forced to do this by your employer, or was this entirely self-inflicted?

  Asking for a friend.

• creaturemachine

  today at 3:10 PM

  Congratulations! Tech doesn't have to be the end goal. Personally I can't wait to shake this industry and find a new path in retirement.

• beached_whale

  today at 3:08 PM

  More and more I have realized it was not the coding that I enjoyed, but solving problems/puzzles. This fits into the beautiful code not really mattering to more than myself but the solution for people, but that is hard to let go of.

• Devasta

  today at 3:15 PM

  I have definitely found my enjoyment of coding in my spare time is lessened now that AI is on the scene. I know very few if any were going to use the code, but it felt like working on a classic car, the act of working on it was fun even if the final results seem like they could have been used more productively.

  Now, I just feel like I am transcribing a phonebook.

• adamddev1

  today at 3:08 PM

  Honest question: if you didn't enjoy using AI, why not just write code without using AI?

  • yunwal

    today at 3:12 PM

    At least in my work, this is sort of like asking "If you don't enjoy CI/CD or the cloud, why not do without it?" It's becoming integrated into every process at this point.

• add-sub-mul-div

  today at 3:07 PM

  I made it 27 before I retired. I kind of wish I was older so I could have enjoyed more years of what was a fun career before it turned into... this.

  • ryandrake

    today at 3:12 PM

    More and more I'm finding myself saying: "I got into this career because I liked technology, computers, programming, and so on. Not whatever this is!"

• CuriouslyC

  today at 3:04 PM

  It's not AI or you, it's this late stage capitalist marketing firehose of bullshit and enforced productivity. Hype is out of control, nothing is real, it's exhausting.

  • ryandrake

    today at 3:10 PM

    I think you're getting unfairly downvoted. A lot of people, across all salary ranges, are just vaguely tired of constantly Providing Maximal Shareholder Value™ to their managers day in and day out, having that One Purpose dominate their lives, and at the end of each day looking up and seeing nothing tangible to show for what they've done.

This resonates with me as well. For more reasons than one: with the rise of AI (Mythos is but a pale forerunner) digital security — and by extension, digital privacy — has ceased to exist. The bomber will always win. The only way to win is not to play.

This reminds me of the movie Edge of Tomorrow where the main character decides he doesn't want to fight the aliens today and instead goes into town to get a drink at the pub. The aliens still get him.

Robots and stuff are going to start appearing everywhere soon. He's not going to like that. Hoodlums are probably going to start burglarizing his house with their robot accomplices. Then he won't be able to go outside because he doesn't have a robot bodyguard. His UBI would have paid him to stay inside and stare at the wall, but he won't sign up for that cause it requires a smartphone and an identity implant. Probably wind up homeless with a handwritten sign, "Destroy All Clankers! Anything (without an embedded microchip) helps."

thank you for this. what a sacred journey you're embarking on. i hope to follow you - talking with a close friend now about becoming an elevator mechanic. my wife is pregnant so i have to find a profession that comes reasonably close to tech salaries. i've been writing poetry by hand. i think the world you envision is possible, and closer.

• neutronicus

  today at 3:06 PM

  Do not do this until your youngest child is at least 4.

  There is no profession better matching what women in western countries expect from a co-parent than tech. The money first and foremost, but the flexibility to work (more accurately, pretend to work) remotely, too.

  Let me reiterate:

  For your marriage, do not do this until your youngest child is at least 4.

  • mrmarket

    today at 3:11 PM

    This would be ideal, but practically speaking, it will only become harder to switch careers and make up the income gap as I get older (i'm 30) and more people leave tech for less volatile industries. Plus, I don't think we'll be one and done re: kids. I don't think waiting is necessarily a smart long-term move given rising anti-tech sentiment among workers, even if it would be better to wait until the perfect age from a lifestyle perspective. This is just my opinion.

  • shigawire

    today at 3:10 PM

    As someone who changed careers as my youngest was born - hard agree.

  • tayo42

    today at 3:09 PM

    Incel logic for relationships. This isn't how people actually work. Lost my job, considering career switch, marriage and baby are fine

• karmakurtisaani

  today at 3:01 PM

  > my wife is pregnant

  You're just about to become much more dependent on a stable income.

  > i have to find a profession that comes reasonably close to tech salaries. i've been writing poetry by hand.

  These two sentences are completely independent of each other.

  Sorry to be a downer, but once you have kids shit gets real and room for idealism shrinks fast.

  • mrmarket

    today at 3:04 PM

    > you're just about to become much more dependent on a stable income

    would you consider the 2026 SaaS market stable? Very naive take.

    > These two sentences are completely independent of each other.

    They are two separate thoughts. Two thoughts that are separate can exist in one comment. They are just next to each other. The profession that comes close to tech salaries is elevator mechanic. The poetry is for my heart, which is related to this guy's post, in which he talks about leaving tech for the sake of his heart.

    Not only are you a downer, but you have a highly unusual approach to parsing information.

• doug_durham

  today at 3:10 PM

  Why is it a sacred journey? They are quitting a job at Sentry and taking one a Home Depot. As much as I value the role that Home Depot plays in society I'd never use the word "sacred" to describe the work, nor the work at any other job.

Been thinking the same lately…

Text inside images is not a11y. That's a paddlin'.

I jest, but not really. There were already a ton of reasons tech might burn someone out and AI was the cherry on top.