To Embrace the AI Shift, First Shift Your Identity

I've been a software engineer for over 4 years now, and the changes AI has brought in that short time have been nothing short of wild to witness.

The way I see it, a software engineer's role is shifting from writing code to reviewing it. And honestly, it feels strange. Like we're not really doing anything anymore. That's because most of us grew up with this labourer mindset: we write code, we're good at it, that's the job. That was the identity.

Then tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and others came along and most of us quietly had the same realisation: writing code isn't really something we need to do anymore. It reminded me of past transitions — typewriter operators, stenographers, entire professions that slowly became obsolete not because people failed, but because the tools got better. We went from pen and paper to keyboards and monitors. Now we're going from doing things to commanding AI to do them for us.

Then tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and others came along and most of us quietly had the same realisation: writing code isn't really something we need to do anymore. It reminded me of past transitions. Typewriter operators, stenographers, entire professions that slowly became obsolete not because people failed, but because the tools got better. We went from pen and paper to keyboards and monitors. Now we're going from doing things to commanding AI to do them for us.

But here's the part nobody talks about enough. There's something inside us that has to shift before we can fully embrace this change. And that thing is our self-identity.

Think about a software engineer who's spent a decade mastering their craft. Writing elegant code, debugging at 2am, learning every quirk of a language. That was them. And now, a big chunk of what they spent years trying to master can be offloaded to an AI with a well-written prompt. That's not just a career shift. That's an identity crisis.

So the real question isn't whether AI is good enough to replace what we do. It probably already is. The question is whether we're willing to let go of who we thought we were, and grow into who we need to become. The engineers who will thrive aren't the ones who resist this shift or mourn it. They're the ones who redefine themselves around it. Not coders. Thinkers. Not executors. Decision makers. The craft is still there. It just looks different now.

I do this work and this is me should be changed in order to fully embrace the AI change.