Nestor G Pestelos Jr · Writing · Print
The Programmer Was Only Ever One Incarnation
I want to keep discovering and solving problems with AI's help. Writing the syntax myself can become a smaller part of that work. The calling survives a change in how I practice it.
Stanford's Digital Economy Lab updated its employment study in August. Employment among workers aged 22 to 25 in highly AI-exposed occupations was about 19 percent below the level implied by growth among their less-exposed peers. "Experienced workers show no comparable gap." The shortfall appeared mainly in hiring young workers. This is not evidence that experienced programmers are being discarded, and the study does not establish how much AI caused the gap.
I should have found that comforting when a founder passed on me for a role I wanted. The feedback was that my answers were too general and missed details other candidates identified. I had spent the week before the interview writing plans and adversarial reviews. I agreed with the criticism.
I want to keep discovering and solving problems, now assisted by AI tooling. That means letting go of syntax: writing each line myself can become a smaller part of the work. The interview feedback remains relevant even when a tool can produce the code; the missing details still matter.
In The War of Art, Steven Pressfield writes: "The professional does not permit himself to become hidebound within one incarnation, however comfortable or successful." I can apply that permission to the way I solve problems. Programming gave that work a form I knew well. AI gives me a way to continue it with less of my effort spent expressing a solution in code.
Steve Young told Tim Ferriss that leaving his NFL role required mourning it and treating it as something he could visit rather than keep carrying. In the same episode, Matthew McConaughey describes refusing romantic comedies for about twenty months before different offers arrived. He stayed an actor but gave up the kind of acting that paid him. Their changes were larger than the one I want to make within software, where AI can help me keep solving problems.
I run a small fleet of agents at home. This year, a formatting check blocked the job that syncs my notes across machines 51 times because it rejected trailing spaces. The fix exempted the automatic sync from that check. Solving that problem required deciding where the rule should apply. Typing the exemption was one part of the repair.
Sources: Steven Pressfield, The War of Art, Book Two, “A Professional Reinvents Himself” (Rugged Land, 2002; book page). Research and interview sources are linked inline.