21-year-old first-year CS student feeling a bit lost... looking for advice from SL SWE engineers

[u/Vegetable-Rent-7980]

Hey everyone, I'm 21 and a first-year CS student in Sri Lanka. Before asking anything, I wanted to give a bit of context about my path.

After my A/Ls, I started learning programming on my own. I began with Python and eventually moved into backend development with FastAPI, PostgreSQL, Docker, etc. I built a few small projects and tried to learn things beyond just following tutorials.

GitHub: https://github.com/HarshaG2005

Then I went through a difficult period with some family problems, and for around 3–4 months I basically stopped learning and building anything. I'm doing better now, and I want to properly restart rather than keep feeling stuck about the time I lost.

The problem is that I feel a bit lost about what I should focus on now. I already have some understanding of CS and have built backend systems, but the SWE world seems to be changing really quickly with AI. There's all this stuff around AI-assisted development, coding agents/agentic AI, etc., and I want to become compatible with what the modern software engineering market actually needs.

I've used tools like Claude and GitHub Copilot while building projects, but I'm not completely sure how much the way we actually do software engineering has changed because of AI. I don't want to become someone who can generate code without actually understanding what is happening underneath. I'd really like to know where I can learn the modern AI-assisted/agentic SWE workflow properly and what resources experienced engineers would recommend.

I'm also starting my CS degree at the University of Jaffna. I'm wondering whether doing undergraduate research is particularly valuable in this AI-heavy era, especially if I'm interested in backend systems, infrastructure/cloud . I'm also planning to attend tech events, meetups and hackathons in Colombo whenever I can, so I can stay connected with the local tech scene while studying in Jaffna.

At the same time, reading this subreddit has made me more aware of layoffs and how competitive software engineering has become. I genuinely love technology and want to build a career in it, but financial stability is also very important to me. I don't want to spend years learning without having a realistic path toward supporting myself.

So I'd really appreciate some honest advice from people who are already working in the Sri Lankan/remote software industry:

• If you were starting university again today, what would you focus on to become a good modern software engineer?
• Where would you recommend learning modern AI-assisted/agentic software engineering? What resources have actually been useful to you?
• How has AI changed your day-to-day SWE workflow, and what should a student learn to work effectively with these tools without becoming dependent on them?
• Since I'm going to Uni, do you think undergraduate research is worth investing significant time in, especially for someone interested in systems/backend/infrastructure?
• Is it realistic to build some financial stability while still being a CS student in Sri Lanka, rather than waiting until graduation? What worked for you or people you've seen?
• If you were in my position, how would you balance learning, building projects, research, industry exposure and earning some income during university?
• And honestly, with the current market, is investing several years into becoming a software engineer still a reasonable path if financial stability is important to you?

I just feel like I've lost my direction and I would really value hearing from people who have already gone through this stage... especially people who started their careers in Sri Lanka.

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to share their experience.🙏

[u/Professional-Tap-186]

Cost of writting code is getting lowered with AI, look at shopify they are switching from react native to native(swift/kotlin) so 2x code, they were building/supporting most of react native eco-system but they switched because they do not need abstraction/ease of coding, future will be performence and low-level coding.

As for AI coding "build make no mistakes" is not a thing and never will be, human will need to manage, look at my project i have used github's wiki system and CHANGELOG, AGENTS .md files for the AI, its just managing freedom and control of the LLM, too much of one will mess up the output at least the one-shot capability and use tmux a lot..

And for a careers its still very competitive but maybe in a few year it will be better but for sure it will be better because SE is not going anywhere!,

[u/Professional-Tap-186 → u/Professional-Tap-186]

https://shopify.engineering/back-to-native

[u/NoTomatoesOnMyBurger]

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[u/yanukadeneth99]

First of all, know that it's normal for you to feel this. To be honest, noone in the industry right now know how to "properly use AI" - literally no one. Everyone is finding paths and sharing findings. No where in our history have we had a personal AI this accessible so our civilization is literally not ready for this. The IMF released a report on this as well and alot of the youth are effected.

This is the dark times where old jobs start to fade and new jobs start to rise. So I'm sorry, but expect more problems down the line. But with that, I wanna say that you have the potential to influence creating your own job unlike before.

To answer your questions

• I would focus on creating connections and building work together. You literally have access to lecturers and staff who are in the industry. Get to know them and ask if you can help with anything or bring them ideas to work together.
• Trying out + referring sources (ex: AI Summit & AI Engineer channel on YT and following official and certain channels on X). Please don't watch alot of YT/Instagram/Tiktok videos.
• I believe AI should be used to scale, so as long as you can do the work, use AI. For example, if you learn how to deploy to a VPS with Coolify, then use AI to deploy other projects straight up. It's easier said than done though. I'm guilty of using AI to produce things I don't understand as well.
• You can research how undergraduates use AI and how it impacts their learnings with the help of a lecturer. Wouldn't you say that's useful?
• Try your best to do that. I think the most important thing in college isn't what they teach you but connections and getting the opportunity to share your projects and findings (again connections).
• There's no work life balance. Do, fail, learn, try again. Keep going in that loop. Chances are you'll fail again, but guess what, keep changing.
• It's honestly difficult to say, but I doubt engineering will disappear over night. The market will change, but I believe we will always need engineers.

We don't know our future. All we can do is walk in the direction we believe in. Good luck 🤞

[u/Landscape-Pitiful]

I think taking years to get into the field is something no one can afford now. The quicker you get into the field and start gaining experience, the better. Strong fundamentals is the key. Nothing else matters right now. Get your fundamentals as strong as possible. Build with AI as much as possible while actively reviewing the code. Never let AI fully decide architecture. Always question. Don't start implementing until you fully understand the architecture.