Terrible news. The robots stole my job. By which I of course mean that I am yet another casualty of the huge wave of AI redundancies. I already did not like generative AI, but my work had become Claude workflow after Claude workflow and left little room for what I joined up for. What I actually liked about the job was the mathematics and logic of programming, and now LLMs have made needing this skill a thing of the past, with little left for creativity. So, what am I to do? I'm currently looking at my skills to figure out what would work well for me, and have a good few ideas of where to go next:
Voice Acting
Something I'd love to get into, since it's a creative venture, and somewhere I wouldn't mind going next. I have adamently followed a few VAs' journeys and admire their work, and even though I'm just trying to improve my default voice, I can already do silly impressions. Maybe that's good enough.
Acting/documentaries
I tried to get into the drama clubs as a kid, and enjoyed filming skits when I was at school. I feel like this skill could be improved, and my memory would need extra tricks if I were not to get into pitfalls, because after all my memory works well from numbers, rather than words.
Music
One of the ideas that I feel I am rather already better at, although I still fail to understand how I am supposed to make a living off of it. Perhaps people would like to hire me to make ditties and tunes for their media productions, like I used to advertise myself as. I could make my music section of my website more prominent or create a domain especially for it. After all, I was professionally trained in piano and flute, and taught myself the guitar.
Video production
I have made silly little edits before, and quite enjoyed the process of using video editors to express my creativity. Perhaps I can be professionally hired for this.
Audio engineering
One of the things I also enjoy is the process of making and mixing music and audio into a production using some of the tools I have learned to use over the years. It's also something I'd really like a foot in the door in.
3D modelling
I did quite enjoy playing on 3D model packages from quite a while ago, and did find it quite satisfying to refresh my memory of Blender recently. I'm in the middle of a 3D printable boom with the correct holes for a 1300MHz antenna. You knew I did ham radio, right?
Game development
It's a bit of an overlap with some of the below, but I have already programmed a couple of game demos, so with more inspiration I would be happy to continue.
Product manager in a tech company
The natural step up from what I've mostly been, and about time to do the upgrade, if I'm going to work in a large tech company again, and own the production and delivery of a piece of software. Even though I have been the sole tech person in a team, I have led one commercial product in a large team before, and it seems the logical next step.
CTO in a tech company again?
I've been the sole tech person in a technology company several times, and having the architecture decisions and freedom to express my learnings and understandings of software from a CTO's perspective, with communication between customers is something I'd quite enjoy doing again, which is why I've tried to continue my personal software projects to practice the art of delivering software from requirements to finished, deployed product.
Freelance software
Whilst I have done freelance software before, the last conversation I had with a potential client was just going to use ChatGPT to make their website. My skills seem like they are no longer required. The world as we know it has changed drastically over the last few years.
Let's see what the future holds, and if you have any suggestions on anyone who would welcome extra help with any of the above, please get in touch.