This is basically me.

I was in restaurant management in the late '90s, and knew it well, but loved computers and had been teaching myself programming for a while.

My last restaurant job was for a small franchisee, and I moved into IT and support for them after a couple of years (while also doing catering, covering vacations for managers, doing graphics on vehicles and banners, pretty much whatever needed to be done).

In 2001 I went to work for the company that sold us our POS Systems. Originally I did installation, training, and support, but started coding pretty quickly, and after a few years became lead.

I now own all of that software / IP, and my own company.

I've spent my entire career as a professor advocating that students should pick a minor, certificate, or double major if they're capable.

My rationale is remarkably similar I think. Literally ever field, hobby, and area of study involve some form of technology. Many of those disciplines lack the sophistication of the tooling and that we have in more programming related fields, which makes people with an additional specialized skill set extremely valuable.

Hell, look around at fintech, bioinformatics, computational arts, etc. We have emerging Fields all the time that are essentially computer science combined with another field.

And electricians don't have to interact with human feces nearly as often.

Three phase PoE anyone?

Tell me about it. Giving thought to retraining as an electrician given how in demand they are.

The trades pay very well and are in high demand.

But you'll pay for it with crippling back pain at 45. Maybe some nice cancer as a bonus, from all the exposure to weird chemicals. Oh, and 90% of your coworkers racist, sexist, homophobic MAGA-heads who'll make sure you hear about it at every opportunity.

The trades can still be good, but go into it with eyes open. It's no paradise.

You asked wrong! You forgot "no mistakes"

I was in IT 20+ years.

I quit 4 years ago and opened an arcade. My only regret is I should have bailed out 10 years ago.

Nothing wrong with being an arborist.

I know this is a haha community, but software isn't dead. Most corps are going to insist you use AI. Especially as a junior dev. Look for places that say things like "engineers make the decisions". You need to find a place where you can get experience learning how software is built, even if the bot does the typing. People have been getting laid off and that sucks but software devs aren't going anywhere. Ai writes bad code. They need us to make sure bad code doesn't go to production.

Don't let it get you down. You need to remember that this whole AI hype / AI will replace everyone is coming from people who invested a lot of money into it and really need it to succeed now.

Many also have an oversimplified view of what the discipline of software engineering includes in addition to little understanding how different types of AI work.

Besides, skillsets you learned in SE can easily applied to other 'non-virtual' fields. Many people suck at providing clear and specific instructions or requirements; businesses also have many real world processes that need to be optimized; identifying problems in a system (you first need to see there is an issue, if you want to ask an AI to fix it for you in the next step); being able to break down and tackle large, complex topics; ... I could probably come up with many more points.

(But to be straight: There are a lot of better options for a career, please try them first)

Oops, requirements were written by ai too

I quit programming and became a school bus driver. I'm 100X happier even if I am making like 1/6 of what I used to make. What I'll do after I'm replaced with AI I don't know, but at least it will happen long after I would have been replaced as a programmer by AI. I'm more concerned about what the parents will do when their kids are run over by the fucking AI-driven school buses.

To be fair having been in software for awhile, plenty of people were slinging slop before AI as well.

The difference is back then, we could block the PR, now management demands velocity at all costs.

It will catch up eventually.

Every other baker gets up at 2am. Be the only 2pm baker out there for fresh evening breads!