My job title wasn't the answer

The popularity of personality quizzes has endured because there's no easy answer to the question "Who am I?" It's enticing to believe that a series of multiple-choice questions can give us a clear picture of our future. In college, we spent a lot of time figuring out the most suitable major because we were told it would determine the rest of our lives. It made sense that if we could answer the question "What career should I pursue?" we'd also have the answer to "Who am I?" I envied the classmates who said with certainty, "I'm going to be an accountant and then work for the Big 4." I wished I could be that certain of my future.

I had only a vague idea that I loved learning and wanted to help people, so I surprised myself when I became a software engineer. Software engineering wasn't on the recommended list for my personality type. It was on the "Avoid" list because it would be "too logical and analytical." Even so, for most of the past ten years, working as a software engineer brought me a lot of joy. Every day, I learned something new and could use that knowledge to build software for others.

A head heavy with ideas

I got into the career unexpectedly. A year after graduation, I had crossed off almost every item on my list of jobs to try, and I was desperate to figure out my life. Then I found a posting for a nonprofit that sounded perfect. The director said the organization was small but making a huge impact. He boasted that a publishing deal would close soon, so I'd be joining at a critical time.

When I showed up for work, the "workplace" turned out to be the director's apartment. A few other recent college graduates and I were packed into the living room, working long hours. There was a lot of work to do, but we couldn't finish anything because the director changed his mind about priorities every hour. He'd often cradle his head in both hands and say, "I need to hold up my head with both hands because my head is so heavy with ideas and concern for the world."

My coworkers and I truly believed in the mission, so we tried to overlook the strange work environment and the disorganization. The apartment had no window screens, so flies drifted in all day, the big kind that buzzed around our heads. The director's plan was to spray a fly with Lysol to knock it out so he could carry it back outside. The fly dropped dead, and he was distraught. My coworkers and I sat around him awkwardly while he threw a tantrum, complaining that no one had warned him flies could die like that and that we didn't care about his grief.

A few weeks in, we found out there wouldn't be any pay because there was no publishing deal. I quit three weeks later, and the director told me how disappointed he was that I was leaving over money.

I wanted so badly for this job to work out because it seemed to fit me on paper. I thought I'd finally found my purpose. It had felt like my last hope, and when it fell apart, I was crushed.

Starting from scratch

That low point was also a turning point. Through it, I discovered that I loved organizing data and creating structure. I had run out of jobs to try on my “Recommended” list, and I started to wonder whether the quiz had ever really known me. So I tried something it had told me to avoid. I started learning to code with free online tutorials, and soon I was spending all my time on it.I dedicated all my time to learning how to code. I was frustrated by how long it took me to understand the basics, and my early projects were Frankenstein monsters stitched together with gnarly patches of code. After a few months of teaching myself, I put together a portfolio and started job hunting.

Job hunting was scary, but I figured nothing could be as bad as the nonprofit, where each day had felt like a fever dream. Still, pitching my coding skills was daunting. I'd worked hard on my projects, but I also got lucky: I landed my first job through a job fair.

I only knew the basics of web development at that point, but I was willing to learn everything. I'm forever grateful to my first boss for taking a chance on me and to the senior software engineers who mentored me. They taught me that the best software engineers excel not only at technical skills but also at communication. This career has challenged me and nurtured my creativity. It has let me work on everything from streaming to robotics. I've met amazing colleagues who inspired me to keep improving, and we cheered each other on to stay curious and keep learning.

When we handed down the craft

For ten years, I marched happily side by side with my career. Since the explosion of AI, though, I've felt out of step with it. We software engineers like to think of ourselves as artisans, crafting elegant solutions and sharing what we learn with the team. We used to experiment with new technology to scale our projects further. We could tinker with our code all day, but we also understood that refinement had to be balanced against business goals. With AI, that balance feels gone. In my experience, software engineering has become almost entirely about speed and efficiency.

Code reviews used to be where the team gave feedback on everything from architecture to maintainability. One of the first pieces of advice I received in a code review was to be consistent with my naming. It was fine to use camelCase, snake_case, or any other style, as long as I stuck with it. I followed that advice for the rest of my career, naming files consistently and erring on the side of long, descriptive names over short ones. Senior engineers guided me through best practices like this one, and when I became a senior engineer myself, I tried to do the same for others.

I also loved that for large pull requests, the team would gather to demo the features and discuss any changes needed. These were my favorite meetings, a chance for all of us to exchange knowledge and ideas.

Prompting alone

Since the rise of AI, code reviews look different. Much of the code is now generated by AI, and AI agents can review it too. When someone has a question about the code, the norm has become sharing how different LLMs answered it. Those answers are then fed into yet another LLM to produce a summary. As the work shifted from writing code to writing prompts, companies needed new ways to measure productivity.

Some companies now require engineers to use AI tools, and not using them can lead to a negative performance review. Performance started being measured almost entirely by lines of code written, number of tasks closed, and time spent resolving customer support tickets. I miss the collaboration that happened during code reviews. I miss learning from my colleagues and mentoring juniors. Now I spend most of my day prompting chatbots by myself, and I don't recognize the career anymore.

Who am I now?

My career had become a huge part of my identity, and I was terrified that losing my connection to it meant I'd be directionless. I grieved for the career I had loved. After a decade together, losing it feels like losing a dear friend.

Just for fun, I retook the personality quizzes. My type had changed, but the description felt familiar: I want to live a life of purpose and build deep relationships in which I'm appreciated and understood. Then again, that probably describes almost anyone. Maybe no quiz was ever going to answer "Who am I?" for me. Ten years ago, I thought the perfect career would be my life's purpose, and I believed I'd figured out what I'd do for the rest of my life. When software engineering stopped feeling right, I felt lost all over again.

What I loved most about being a software engineer was being part of a kind, supportive team that worked through challenges together. I loved when my colleagues and I shared our knowledge and debated proposals. I loved when we created something we were all proud of and released it into the world. But none of that is exclusive to software engineering. I can build meaningful connections in other parts of my life, too. Now it's time to find out what lies beyond my career. I'm scared, but I'm also optimistic about what the next decade will bring.