AI makes coding faster, but is it making IT jobs harder? 7-year tech veteran's post sparks debate

A software professional with seven years of experience has turned to Reddit to ask a question that many technology workers may recognise: what comes after a career in IT when keeping up with the industry begins to feel unbearable?

“I want to just leave IT and do something else,” he wrote, explaining that the pace of technological change had made it difficult to keep up.

He also argued that expectations around individual responsibilities had become blurred, with one person increasingly expected to handle work that would previously have been divided between several roles.

The strain, he said, had begun affecting his life beyond the office.

"Every day I wake up with fast heartbeat and feel like I should run away from work. The meetings, scrum calls, updates, deadlines and status calls give me anxiety and this is everyday occurrence. The working hours are almost 12 in real and 9 on paper. I feel my entire life is just going in work and nothing is outside it. On weekends I just end up resting to recover and don’t feel like going out and the day I take leave I just feel weird that what should I even do I can’t even think of doing something else apart from work,” he wrote, describing anxiety around meetings, daily Scrum calls, updates, deadlines and status reports.

His weekends, he said, were largely spent recovering from the working week. Even taking leave had become difficult, as he struggled to think about activities unrelated to work.

“I have decided I don’t wanna spend my life like this anymore as it feels suffocating,” he wrote, asking others whether they had left IT and what alternative careers they would recommend.

One commenter, who said they had eight years of experience in IT, wrote, “Same, man. I have 8 years of experience, and I’m tired of constantly fighting with AI and trying to upskill.”

The commenter added that attempts to establish a software business with a friend had repeatedly failed as AI capabilities advanced. They said they might eventually explore another industry, expressing a desire to escape what they described as the “LinkedIn hustle-and-depression trap”.

Others advised the original poster against leaving immediately. One suggested remaining in IT for another two or three years to build financial security, ensuring that dependent family members had adequate health insurance before making a career change. They also recommended pursuing an MTech degree and exploring university teaching.

Another commenter pointed out that seven years of experience could open doors to management-oriented or business-focused positions where technical knowledge remained valuable.

He wrote, "7 years of experience is quite a lot dude and u have invested so much in this industry.. and its quite hard to get this amount of experience .. But there are many alternate career paths with this much experience u can try out look for options like that management oriented or buinsess oriented where now people do need people with technical experience."

Not everyone believed changing jobs would resolve the problem.

“There's no way out in this economy, seems like you're under bad management mostly just one particular person who's making things intolerable. Better find ways to deal with stress. Keep trying for interviews .. it's not like things will be different it's probably going to be same at the new job if you manage to land it. But at least you'll get paid better. And who knows there may even be peaceful work environment which you can adapt to. "But only way out is through, can't stop can't run away,” one person wrote.

AI tools can accelerate coding, but that does not necessarily mean developers have less work. Reviewing generated code, correcting errors and learning unfamiliar tools can add responsibilities even as some tasks become quicker.

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