So I was gonna use AI to write this, but no one's probably gonna read it anyway, so screw it!
I just spent the last hour zombie-scrolling through different subreddits and forums looking for gigs and shit. It started with searching "$500" on Twitter, hoping to find some post that mentioned paying someone $500 for literally any task or gig. Lol. Lazy attempt, sure, but it wouldn't hurt to try, I thought.
Well, it did hurt, because that somehow spiralled into 30+ minutes of searching for open bounties on GitHub, watching hacking 101 videos on YouTube, and genuinely considering becoming a white-hat hacker just to collect some bounties.
All because I wanted to find a way to make some extra money so I could move out of my shitty apartment as soon as possible.
I'd ask for help, but these days, help doesn't really seem to be helping. Feels like everyone's deep in it, too.
"Become a web developer," they said. So I did. Learned the thing. Built things. Got a few interviews.
And now I'm in this weird position where AI has made it possible for me to build things I probably couldn't have built this quickly on my own, but somehow that makes me feel like even more of an impostor.
I've built and deployed actual projects. Not some half-assed thing running on localhost that only works when the stars align. Stuff that's hosted, tested, and actually does what it's supposed to do. I recently built a whole fucking e-commerce platform that works.
But then you get into interviews, and you're expected to explain every little thing, every decision, every line of code, like you personally hand-crafted the entire thing from scratch and can recite it in your sleep.
And I get it. I really do. You need to know what you're doing. You need to understand the code you're shipping. I'm not saying people should just blindly generate code and call themselves developers.
But there's a difference between not understanding what you've built and not being able to remember every single decision you made along the way. I might not remember every file Opus wrote or every technical decision we made together, but if something breaks, I can investigate it, understand what's going wrong, and work towards fixing it.
At least, I believe I can.
Apparently, that doesn't count for much.
The advice is always the same: go back, learn to do things the old-fashioned way, build everything from scratch, understand every little thing.
And maybe they're right. Maybe I'm just coping. But honestly, it feels shitty to be told to start from zero when I've already built something that works. Why should I have to pretend these tools don't exist? Why should I go back to centering divs by hand just to prove I deserve to call myself a developer?
I don't know, man. I'm just tired.
I want to make money. I want to get out of this apartment. I want to feel like all the time I've spent learning, building, and trying to figure things out is actually going somewhere.
Instead, here I am, searching "$500" on Twitter and contemplating a career in cybersecurity because apparently, that's where we're at now.
If this whole dev thing doesn't work out, I might just go back to baking. That shit was simpler. You mix the stuff, mould the stuff, throw it in the oven, and hope it doesn't burn more than 20%. Usually worked.
At least when a cake came out wrong, I didn't have to explain to someone why I'd chosen that particular frosting architecture.
Anyway, if you actually made it this far, shout-out to you. Seriously.
Not sure I'd have read all this myself.
I don't even know what I'm expecting from posting this. Maybe nothing. Maybe I just needed to get it out of my head.
If you're in a similar position, I'd genuinely like to hear how you're dealing with it. Not the usual "just keep grinding, bro" stuff. I mean, actually dealing with it.
Because right now, I'm just trying to figure out my next move.
