🔍 I’ve said before that I’m worried about where software development is heading. But it’s not just AI that’s the problem — it’s what AI is revealing.

We’ve built an industry that rewards speed, hype, and surface-level skill over depth, safety, and real user value. And it’s starting to show — in the products we use, the people we hire, and the damage being done.

📈 This started before AI. During the pandemic, bootcamps exploded. Thousands of people pivoted to software for the remote work and high salaries. The market got flooded with junior devs trained just enough to build a CRUD app — but not enough to understand why and how things should be built.

🧑‍💻 There’s this assumption that younger generations are “digital natives” who inherently understand technology. But as one teacher put it perfectly: most kids can’t actually use computers. They can use Facebook, YouTube, and apps — but ask them to reinstall an operating system, upgrade hardware, or explain what HTTPS means, and they’re lost. We’ve confused digital consumption with technical competence.

🏢 Companies, driven by “fail fast” mantras and under pressure to cut costs, replaced specialists with generalists. Now everyone’s expected to be “full stack,” even when solving problems that require deep domain knowledge.

I used to think my hiring standards were too high. But when someone with “expert SQL” on their CV doesn’t know how EXPLAIN works — or a “senior Python dev” can’t tell me what the GIL is — I have to ask: is it me? Or has the bar been buried?

🤔 I’ve seen recruiters say, “If you’re getting poor candidates, maybe you’re the problem.” But maybe — just maybe — the problem is that we’ve made it too easy to become a software developer for the wrong reasons.

Here’s what pushed me over the edge:

💰 At a recent conference, I watched a speaker describe how their fintech app was hacked, losing millions. But everything they described — lack of atomic operations, missing idempotency, bad rate limiting — are solved problems. Any financial institution knows this. Who funded this system? Who reviewed it? And why is this now a conference talk instead of an accountability review?

🚗 Another example: a local app meant to make parking easier let you register any license plate — no verification. Turns out, stalkers used this to track women. The app creator “solved a problem” — but not a meaningful one. And their solution was dangerous.

This is what happens when “move fast and break things” gets applied by people who don’t know what the things are — or who they belong to.

✨ I’m not saying all developers are bad. I’ve worked with phenomenal engineers who care deeply about what they build. But we’ve created an ecosystem that makes it easy — and profitable — for people to ship dangerous, irresponsible, half-baked products without ever being held accountable.

All in the name of “hustle,” “scale,” and “getting to market fast.”

And for what?

…

Perhaps I’m just naive. Or maybe I’m old-fashioned.

🤝 I’ve always felt torn between the hacker ethic — “everything should be open and shared” — and the capitalist mantra — “if you’re good at something, don’t do it for free.”

But at the end of the day, that tension is exactly why I’m so particular about the projects I take on.

🌟 Whether it’s health systems that improve well-being, internet access for under-served communities, or tools that help educators teach — I want my work to matter. I want to build things that are good. Not just functional. Not just profitable. Good.

And I take pride in building things well.

💪 So yes, I struggle when others don’t hold the same standard — not because I expect perfection, but because I still believe this craft deserves respect.

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This post was prompted by myself with my own thoughts and then formatted using Claude AI. I never posted it. But the message was important, so here it is anyway.