SWE to SA
Hi all, I'm feeling a bit frustrated and just wanted to share my thoughts. I used to work as an SWE in FAANG in a smaller country. At work, we used AI a lot, mostly just writing prompts and waiting for the results. The only times AI wasn't enough were at the very beginning (solution design, scoping, finding the correct services and approach) and at the very end (deployment issues, maintenance, security).
Beyond that, while it wasn't as common on my specific team, Big Tech generally involves endless daily meetings, code reviews, responding to comments on those reviews, security checks, etc. I do enjoy the core problem-solving aspect: an internal or external team brings me a business problem, and I'm the one who solves it. I also love when we can just cut the bullshit (except for bs product managers, who are the worst).
What I don't love is the 'feed it a prompt and let AI do the whole job' part. But honestly, I don't like manual coding either, nor the endless revisions, Jira tickets, security issues, deployment headaches, daily standups, or dealing with SWE nerds who are absolutely obsessed with the job. Honestly, there just aren't many interesting people around me in this space. Also, the fear of AI taking our jobs is real, and I just don't see the value in being an ordinary SWE at this point.
Because of all this, I decided to pivot to Solutions Architect (SA), Partner Engineering, and Customer Engineering roles. I've actually received offers from FAANG companies in the UK and Germany for SA and Sales Engineer roles!
Now I'm confused and doubting myself since this is a literal career change. Will I become useless technically? Could I have been a better SWE if I had just stuck it out for a few more years and tried to love the job? Will I just end up as a salesperson without deep technical knowledge? Will I ever be able to go back to software or AI engineering if I want to?
I really just need some courage and support right now.