HACKER Q&A
📣 0xkaka

Seeking Career Advice as a New Graduate


I’m a recent graduate in computer engineering, and I’m finding it challenging to navigate the job market as a beginner. I’ve explored various fields including data analysis, front-end development, and currently, I’m working in SEO at an AI startup.

I’m feeling a bit lost about my career direction. Development tools like Claude seem to be much smarter and more efficient than my coding skills, which adds to my uncertainty. I aspire to become an independent developer and work on innovative projects rather than getting stuck in routine tasks at a big company.

I’d greatly appreciate any advice on how to focus my career, gain valuable experience, and navigate these early stages of my professional journey. Also, I’m curious about how AI might impact the role of programmers in the future. Will AI tools eventually replace programmers, or is there still a strong future for human developers?

Thanks in advance for your insights and guidance!

  👤 __d Accepted Answer ✓
If you want to become an independent developer, you can just do it! Find a problem (ideally one a lot of people have), come up with a solution, code it, and apply your SEO skills to begin recruiting users.

As a general rule, a web-based solution is easier to develop, deploy, manage, and maintain than mobile/desktop/server apps, so maybe start there?

Programmers have used tools since day 1: "AI" is just another tool. Just as an optimizing compiler can be magical to an assembly language programmer, so is an LLM to you. Programming will evolve, but the fundamental skills of analysis, breaking down the problem, and making the machine do the steps will remain.

Focus your self-education not on programming languages, tooling, or operating systems, but on system design and problem analysis and communicating with stakeholders. They're the things that are really valuable: the technology comes and goes.