u/Ok-Structure5637

When I say "here", I mean both in work and in life".

I graduated in 2024 with a degree in computer science and got a job in IT support. I kept studying and practicing for the chance a engineering role were to land in my laps, and one eventually did. I took a job as a Cloud Engineer early this year, and in 6 months I've come to realize that I despise engineering, and my brain is constantly telling me to quit.

Money is not everything to me, but it is a major factor in why I chose computer science. I'm 25 making 80k salary living at home, able to save practically each paycheck completely - but its a golden handcuff situation. I'm practically using Claude to do everything, as is most of my company ($10B/year company) and though I understand and make sure what its coding is correct, I cannot stand the day to day anymore. I can't code by hand, and I live in some sort of constant fear that an automation I create will break and I'll be exposed for not remembering how x function works after a month of not looking at it.

Ive fallen into a major depressive spiral because of it. Im fairly certain that I have ADD, but do not have a PCP to go to for a referral to a psychiatrist. My brain is constantly telling me to run and choose another field, but I know that will not fix anything. Im not built for this for the next 40 years though, I know that for sure.

To top things off, I graduated debt free through scholarships. Depending on how you look at it, I have a safe "out" as I have no obligations, but know that for my lifestyle and what I want for the future, I need to stay making $80k a year. The careers that interest me (primarily Healthcare stuff, quicker interactions where I solve a problem or help do so, then can actually leave everything at the hospital. 3 12's sounds nice too) dont pay anywhere near that much. If I pivot too, I become a further burden to my parents by living at home - they say that they dont mind it, but I know this is hurting them too see me like this too.

All my life people have said they didnt like their job but they stuck through it because it paid the bills, but I feel like this is going to continously spike my cortisol and cause my brain to convince itself of something stupid.

Not really sure what to do here. Im trying to glide by ATM. Careers in healthcare, even the military, and speaking to me right now.

Hi all,

I have an intense response to needles. For whatever reason, when I see a needle in person, especially mixed with blood, I'm out in under a minute. Its incredibly burdening becsuse its essentially locked me out of a healthcare career, despite it being what I want to go into.

Is there a way to "cure" the response? Im assuming exposure therapy helps, however if Im wanting to pursue this then its something I really need to overcome but nothing seems to work.

I graduated in 2024, pretty much the hot spot of when Generative AI started to catch wind. I graduated without ever really using it and had good fundamentals down, but after graduating fell out of love with computer science as I realized doing it alone / in labs and classes was not going to be my day to day. The market also started to crash, which made me realize how much I valued job security.

Anyway, I managed to somehow land my first gig as a Cloud Engineer where its not as heavily coding focused, but still requires it. I feel like I have really good debugging and code reading abilities (like I can look at a new language and deduce what a function or block does), but my company allows us unlimited use of Claude - my team specifically is a Platform team, and it has made a world of a difference in learning and catching up on architecture and system design processes my company has.

I know that I'm not really building fundamentals using AI as much as I would be if I was not, but I truthfully dont know if I care. I never enjoyed coding, more so the problem solving aspect of it, and using AI gets me there so much faster than if I did it by hand. Pipelines, templates, little scripts etc. all can be done so much faster, and testing often yields good results - or course I still validate everything and make sure nothing is unsecure, but alas.

I enjoy using AI because I dont know if I care to be an engineer. I dont care to grind 24/7 to stay market ready because of layoffs, restructuring, offshoring, etc. I dont care to be stressed about the possibility of something breaking at night and being paged to fix it. I don't care to waste time on syntax or code itself anymore. I'm sorry to the older engineers, but I just fell out of love with it.

25m, graduated in 2024 with a degree in (you guessed it) computer science. Landed a role as a Cloud Engineer and im torn on it. I graduated debt free from scholarships and feel like if I turn tail, I'd have wasted all of that for nothing.

I do enjoy the work and my coworkers are great. I'm on a platform engineering team so most my work is SWE adjacent, building automations and such. When I was scouted for the role by a recruiter, I told them and my now manager that I had not coded since I graduated, but proved that I still understood concepts and could explain them clearly. I was soothed by them both saying that this type of coding would be stuff I've never seen before, and they were right.

Fast forward 6 months and I understand the architecture, how to fit new pieces into it, and how to fix and debug the old. Ive always had a really good ability to read and debug code, but just not write it. I'm still stuck at this exact point - I can't write code.

My company has unlimited use of Codex Gemini, and Claude but they are soon to be restricting said access. How far idk, but its rumored to be about $1k per month per dev, which is more than feasible, but I still feel like something isnt clicking. **I just dont think that I enjoy coding anymore.** There is no liminal stress to relearn how to write code because everyone, and I mean everyone (manager and senior devs) say to use it, but to just understand it, and I do. But there is this feeling that I am setting myself up for failure.

Ive essentially shoehorned myself into becoming an engineer - i enjoy some parts of it, but I think I just enjoy the problem solving aspect of it, and helping others - thats why I fit well on the team I'm on.

The thought of going back to school *sounds* nice, probably for something in healthcare, I just dont know if its the right call to make.

25m, graduated in 2024 with a degree in (you guessed it) computer science. Landed a role as a Cloud Engineer and im torn on it. I graduated debt free from scholarships and feel like if I turn tail, I'd have wasted all of that for nothing.

I do enjoy the work and my coworkers are great. I'm on a platform engineering team so most my work is SWE adjacent, building automations and such. When I was scouted for the role by a recruiter, I told them and my now manager that I had not coded since I graduated, but proved that I still understood concepts and could explain them clearly. I was soothed by them both saying that this type of coding would be stuff I've never seen before, and they were right.

Fast forward 6 months and I understand the architecture, how to fit new pieces into it, and how to fix and debug the old. Ive always had a really good ability to read and debug code, but just not write it. I'm still stuck at this exact point - I can't write code.

My company has unlimited use of Codex Gemini, and Claude but they are soon to be restricting said access. How far idk, but its rumored to be about $1k per month per dev, which is more than feasible, but I still feel like something isnt clicking. I just dont think that I enjoy coding anymore. There is no liminal stress to relearn how to write code because everyone, and I mean everyone (manager and senior devs) say to use it, but to just understand it, and I do. But there is this feeling that I am setting myself up for failure.

Ive essentially shoehorned myself into becoming an engineer - i enjoy some parts of it, but I think I just enjoy the problem solving aspect of it, and helping others - thats why I fit well on the team I'm on.

The thought of going back to school sounds nice, probably for something in healthcare, I just dont know if its the right call to make.

Hey everyone,

I'm pretty conflicted and torn when it comes to development now. I'm a new engineer, basically four months into my first role where im on a Cloud Engineering team focused on platform engineering.

I use to be pretty "OK" at coding manually, writting my own code and all (though im sure if I looked at it now, I'd see it as ugly). But now that I'm learning an whole new stack and so many new tools I have no exposure too but conceptual knowledge too, I feel like I'm drowning. I've used AI to help bridge that gap to understand whats going on, but its just caused my imposter syndrome to skyrocket.

It's gotten to any point where I really dont even feel like a develop, and more like an imposter to myself. I've always been pretty good at debugging and reading code that's not my own, but with infrastructure and code spraying many repos I just feel completely lost all the time.

Most of my code is AI now, part of that comes from having to produce to stay in deadlines, part of that is my company HEAVILY encouraging it, and the other part is just my inability to produce code by myself anymore.

I can't really tell if it is imposter syndrome anymore because the entire damn industry is using Claude. I still validate it, I still get PR's and stuff approved and run things by my senior to see if my approach is correct before I get Claude to help me out, but im just at a lost

I know its going to cost me down the line, but what on Earth do I do at this point. I dont have the energy at the end of the day to spend on personal projects because I just dont think I care anymore. There are so many underlying reason why, but there are also just as many as to why I haven't given up yet.

More of a rant, but what is the point of it all if I can even produce myself.

Hey everyone,

25m looking to purchase my first house - currently work as a Cloud Engineer making 80k total comp (low for my position but came in with zero experience or certs).

Graduated school with zero loans thanks to scholarships and being in the band, only debt is my car, which is about 32k right now. I bought a 2024 Bronco about a year ago now as a means to build my credit, and while I know a car that much is irresponsible, my credit has skyrocketed and now I'm willing to either trade it in for something cheaper, or manage correctly to afford it with a new home.

Quick summary:

- FTHB

- 770 Credit

- $15000 saved

- $200k budget

- Rural Alabama area

- $32k debt

- currently living at home

- could pay off all debt in four months of aggressive saving, or buy land/home

My fear of buying now is the industry I work in - its extremely volatile and unknown if iLl even have a job a month, a year, or more from now.

Hey everyone,

To start this out, I'm 25. I graudated in 2024 and got my first role as a software engineer (Platform Engineer, practically adjacent) - I absolutely love the company I work at, my team, and the things I get to work on, but there is this odd impending sense of doom from the work and the industry as a whole that has be questioning everything. I was fortunate enough to graduate without student loans, so I also feel like if I decide to switch now, that would all be for nothing, because I got "the job" and im in a really good spot, but im not happy like I thought I'd be.

For starters, I'm not really coding that much - I'm technically a Jr, but im working on fairly decent sized projects and automations which is fun and I'm learning an lot, but a lot of the code is generated by Claude. Its gotten to the point that I feel as if I can't really code on my own anymore, and I'm not sure I care to relearn how to do it by hand. I can debug, read, and psuedocode it, but if you asked ME to code it, I'd stare at you.

That alone I think has caused a great sense of burn out - the thing I was hunting for years I finally got, but its not what I envisioned it to be. With Claude, the job is easy. My senior engineers both admit that all their code is Claude too, and seem to be OK with that. My manager also. It makes me feel like a fraud in ways, and I'm not sure how to handle that. I know imposter syndrome is huge in this industry, but I didnt know it was this heavy.

Its a golden handcuff situation. I want to find my spark again, the one I had when I decided to major in the field because I enjoyed building. If that constitutes a shift in my career, so be it, but I'm kinda just confused on what step to take. I could stick it out and see what happens with the industry, but I'm perpetually worried that its going to get worse and I'll find myself out of work with no health insurance, back at square one, knowing I'm unsure if this is the type of work I want to do for 40 years. Constantly restarting the rat race.

I never really had a great grasp on what I wanted to do growing up, I just knew I wanted to solve problems and help others get through their day. I'm the only tech guy in my family, everyone else is healthcare or mechanic work, so I really dont have anyone to ask.

How do you know if you're doing good?

I started my first development gig about 4 months ago - I graduated in 2024 and was working as IT support till I landed this roll as a Cloud Platform Engineer and I LOVE it. It's a lot of fun working on automations, and my manager and team are incredibly patient and helpful when I have questions, but I feel like I keep making so many dumb mistakes.

I can tell that I've made substantial progress since starting - I now know how our infrastructure works, and specifically how the system I was hired to work on works and can debug and explain it to others in detail (it's a deployment process that is fairly complex but an incredible feat of engineering). I decided to work on a automation that would let people completely tear down workflows in all environments, but it took me nearly two full sprints to develop, really three with testing and refactoring as I go because I'm having to use Claude and other tools to help me develop it (we heavily use AI here, even my seniors talk about how they don't really code anymore). I can explain the process in full, but I did not take into account just how slow some buckets could take to delete due to needing their objects deleted first. This created a severe bottleneck in the automation that I did not account for, and I feel terrible about it. I know how to fix it now, but it took me a full day of research even with AI helping me to understand it, and even asking my senior engineer about his thoughts.

My manager, director, and teammates have said that I've been doing a good job, but part of me feels utterly useless and somewhat hopeless for some reason. I know that I'm new and that intuition to think about things like this comes over time, but still, with the way the industry is at the moment I can't help but feel like I'm behind and letting them down.

I'm known to overthink because I value what others think of me, but truthfully, is this something I'm in my head about? During the interview process, I explained to my now manager that I had no experience in cloud, or really even software, and he said that this kind of coding was nowhere near what I was use too, and that I would learn just fine (I'm telling you, he's incredible), but why do I feel this way. Imposter syndrome? Too aware? Probably comparing myself to others too much.

I know that imposter syndrome is rampant in our industry, and I can tell it's me hard and need to know what to do or how to handle it.

I'm 25, and graudated in May of 2024. It took me till March 2026 to land my first actual developer role (very casual looking). I am a Cloud Engineer, specifically on a platform engineering team. Ironically, even though this type of role is not entry level, my manager said that I know more than I think I know and has given me incredible leeway to train up, learning our infrastructure and contributing where I can. I could not be more blessed.

But.

I also told him that I was extremely rusty and had not coded in roughly since graduating. He was fine with this and said that the type of coding I'd be doing was different from what I was trained on anyway (I'm telling you, I could not be more blessed). But since starting I cannot help but feel so undeserving and like a fraud.

To start of, the use of AI is very much encouraged at my company. We have unlimited Claude, Codex and Gemini credits and can pick and choose our models as we see fit. Our devops team even has special MCP servers we can tap into for some more juice. To learn our infrastructure and to fill the gaps of what I don't know of what I don't know, I've used it heavily. Like $100-200 in token a day heavily. Some devs are going into the thousands, but I can't help but feel bad that I'm leaning so much on AI to help summarize code I've never seen before. Granted, I am two months in and now understand much more than I did to begin with, but since I'm employing AI, cannot write code myself to save my life. This part has been mentally draining. I'll think of the idea, run it by a lead, and when its time to execute, shit the bed by hand, ans get claude to write it up to review.

I most recently made an tool that will decommission old workflows, deleting their resources in our provider and elsewhere. It works, I thought of the structure and what not - but did not code more than likely 15 lines by hand. Now I'm having to make an authentication system for the service using a secret manager and some other fancy stuff. Easy in theory, but couldn't code it manually for the life of me.

I'm thinking its just a syntax thing, but saying you know Spanish and then not being able to speak it doesn't do you much good.

Idk - I'm doing a code review of what I've made and can easily explain the ins and outs of each function, im just at a loss for what my first dev role is. Beyond lucky to have the team and boss I do, but I feel like im sabatoging myself somehow. Funny but sadly enough, at Google Next, they said the work "Vibe Clouding". If I have become that, then I'm doomed.

Hey everyone,

Finally landed my first engineer position as a Cloud Engineer, specifically on a platform team working at a fairly mid sized comlany ($10B revenue per year). Really enjoying it so far, but starting to think that I am being severely underpaid for the work that I do and don't know how to rectify it.

I'm located in the South East and make $80k/year salary. The "market rate" for a CPE is $130-250k, but my situation is particularly tricky because I am entry level, something unheard of for a Platform engineer. I had zero skills in Kubernetes, any Cloud Service, and coukd really only tell you about concepts and why you would apply them, not how in code.

I've been at this job for about two months and it's been a lot to learn everyday, and I'm practically green fielding a lot of my work which feels great, but im just curious if I'm harming future me by not asking for an adjustment/ review in a couple months.

I finally landed my first position as an engineer at an incredible company. I was working as a IT support specaltist before this, and was reached out to by a recruiter for an entry level role as a Cloud Engineer. I interviewed, and surprisingly landed the role.

The work itself I do love and enjoy doing. I'm a platform engineer so im making automations and ways to create workflows for other teams. I've always inheritly loved automation work, the games I play reflect that, but im a fraud in the sense that I havent really written code myself.

I heavily leaned on Claude to help me learn the repositories quickly so I could start doing something as I was quite literally sitting around watching Google certification videos. But now that i'm being given somewhat real work, I've started to ask Claude more and more about how to do X, Y, and Z. Its helped a lot, and I am guiding it for the most part and pointing some things out, but man do I feel like a fraud for using it. My ability to problem solve code with my own two hands is practically gone. If you asked me to write something as simple as "have this workflow delete a file in a repository", I'd shit the bed and have to ask Claude for a hint.

I distinctly remember in College being able to fly through projects with my own mind and two hands, coding in Javascript for one class, then Python or Java for another.

How does everyone else navigate this? If I don't use it, im practically stuck on a simple problem for a day or two and look like a dumbass to everyone around. If I do use it, then I'm robbing myself of the pleasure and knowledge of actual cloud engineering.