Three years ago, I found myself studying web development.

It was something I had wanted to learn for a long time. I spent my whole life on websites, forums, playing and learning about how the web worked, but never how to create for the web.

That’s when an opportunity came up and I started studying. I felt overwhelmed—there was so much to learn—but every day was a new lesson.

And here I am, 3 years later, working as a frontend developer for a large Canadian company, creating mockups, providing solutions, all through code, or as my mom would say, playing in front of the computer.

It’s been 3 years, which for many might sound short in web development, but it’s been a long journey. I had the opportunity to work developing mobile apps, which I really enjoyed and learned a lot from.

I consider myself a programmer from before the arrival of AI, where you had to go to Google or StackOverflow and see if someone had a similar problem, where spending hours sitting in front of the PC to find the perfect logic was normal, creating something that fulfilled a logic, that wouldn’t break, that respected all parameters.

It’s been 3 years in which the world of programming changed a lot and changed forever.

The question everyone asks but no one has the answer to: will AI replace my job?

I ask myself this, and sometimes with so many advances, I doubt the answer. Sometimes there’s no clear answer, and I think no one has it. Many companies laid off developers because it was more profitable to have multiple AIs and agents; today some of those companies regret that decision.

What I’ve Noticed Changing

Before, being a programmer was like having a superpower, like feeling special.

Now anyone can ask ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini for whatever their mind limits them to—from a function in any language to a small app to launch an MVP.

And I’m not saying that’s bad, it just makes you ask: where do you fit in, where do you come into all this?

I’d be lying if I said I don’t worry sometimes, but I remember Sun Tzu in The Art of War mentioned:

“Water adapts its course to the terrain.”

And I think as a developer it’s the same—it’s about adapting.

AI knows patterns, knows systems, writes code faster than any human, but AI doesn’t understand frustration, AI doesn’t understand feelings or the vague words of someone explaining what they need, it can’t read between the lines, because in the end it’s a tool.

There are things AI still can’t do—it can’t remember the requirement or why X functionality was implemented 6 months ago, if you don’t give it the correct instruction it will fail, it will make mistakes and will do things that don’t align with the request, it can’t fix an error if it doesn’t have context for why something is implemented.

What I’m Doing (Or What I Should Do)

For me, AI won’t replace developers, it will replace developers who don’t adapt to AI, those who don’t understand the foundation, the fundamentals, the patterns and systems behind the code.

It’s not the same to give AI to a programmer as to a person with zero knowledge about programming. That developer will know how to squeeze it, will know how to create workflows, will be able to debug when the AI iteration gets stuck because they know where the problem is.

It’s not about stigmatizing AI, it’s about understanding it, embracing it, and enhancing workflows to better understand your company’s or your job’s business logic.

It’s not about waiting, it’s about going hand in hand to create more and better, because what used to take you 2 or 3 days can now be a matter of hours or minutes.

It’s about thinking more and writing better.

I don’t have the answer, nor do I know what will happen in the future. I’m just a developer who wants to create, grow, and adapt because I love technology.