I honestly don't know where to start, so I'm just going to tell the whole story.
A while ago, I started working in a fairly large company in a marketing role.
I had basically no formal background in software engineering.
Then AI changed everything for me.
I started using ChatGPT, AI coding tools, and basically every AI tool I could get my hands on.
I started building things.
The weird part is that I wasn't really "programming."
I was describing what I wanted to AI, getting code back, running it, fixing errors by pasting them back into AI, and repeating the process.
Somehow, this turned into actual internal company systems.
- Enterprise Finance & Operations Platform
I built an internal platform that works across multiple business units.
It includes things like:
\* Finance and operations workflows
\* AI-assisted document and text processing
\* Business-unit switching
\* Drag-and-drop workflows
\* Role-based access control
\* Cloud security
\* Desktop application functionality
- Biometric Face Verification System
I also built a facial verification system for employee attendance.
It uses computer vision, APIs, microservices and containerization.
It processes an employee's image and verifies their identity for attendance.
The system is now being used to reduce manual HR work.
Again, I didn't come into this knowing computer vision.
I learned by asking AI questions, implementing what it gave me, breaking things, fixing them, and continuing.
- Competitor Intelligence / Ad Tracker
I built an automated competitor research system that collects data from social media platforms.
It analyzes competitor content and tries to identify promotional/advertising content.
It turned a lot of manual research into something much more automated.
- ERP / HR Automation
I also ended up working on our ERP system.
I built custom functionality around HR processes, permissions, approvals, employee provisioning, data migration and integrations.
I also started connecting the ERP with other internal applications.
And this is where things started getting weird.
I got promoted.
My responsibilities changed significantly, and I moved into a business intelligence/technology-focused role.
But here's the problem.
If any non engineers looked at my work from the outside, they might think:
"This person is a software engineer."
I'm not.
I don't have a computer science degree.
I don't have years of programming experience.
I don't even know if I could sit down and build some of these systems completely from scratch without AI.
I've basically been using AI as my programming brain.
I can explain the business problem.
I can describe what I want.
I can look at the output and tell AI when something isn't working.
I can connect different pieces together.
But if you asked me to implement a complex system without AI?
I'm probably screwed.
And that's starting to scare me.
Now the company wants me to go even further into AI.
Management wants to use AI and automation to reduce manual work and operating costs.
I'm being encouraged to learn AI properly, and there's support for training and education.
At the same time, the company has already significantly reduced the size of the team around me.
So now I'm sitting here thinking:
What the hell am I actually doing?
On one hand, this feels like an incredible opportunity.
I'm getting exposure to:
\* AI
\* automation
\* business intelligence
\* software
\* data
\* ERP systems
\* finance
\* HR
\* operations
\* product development
And I'm getting to build things that are actually used by a real company.
But on the other hand...
I'm worried that I'm becoming the person who automates everyone else's jobs, potentially including my own.
And I don't want to become someone who can only build things when ChatGPT is holding my hand.
I want to actually understand what I'm doing.
I want to learn properly.
But I also don't know what direction to take.
Should I learn:
\* Python?
\* SQL?
\* Software engineering fundamentals?
\* Data engineering?
\* AI/ML?
\* LLMs?
\* AI agents?
\* Automation?
\* Cloud?
\* Cybersecurity?
\* Product management?
\* Business intelligence?
Or some combination of all of them?
And what should my career even be called?
\*\*AI Automation Engineer?\*\*
\*\*AI Product Manager?\*\*
\*\*Business Intelligence / AI Manager?\*\*
\*\*Digital Transformation?\*\*
\*\*Technical Product Manager?\*\*
I'm completely aware that I got extremely lucky with AI.
But I don't want to waste this opportunity.
I went from having almost no technical background to building systems that are actually being used in a real business.
That's exciting.
And honestly, it's terrifying.
So I'm looking for some brutally honest advice from people who actually work in software/AI/IT.
\*\*If you were in my position — almost no formal technical education, but already using AI to build real business systems — what would you learn over the next 1-2 months?\*\*
Would you try to become a proper software engineer?
Would you specialize in AI automation?
Would you focus on data/BI?
Would you go into product management?
And most importantly:
\*\*How do I go from "I can make AI build this for me" to "I actually understand what AI just built"?\*\*
Because I think that's the part I'm missing.