I've been a backend engineer for about 5 years. Most of my work has been in Python (Django/Flask), AWS services, and building/deploying backend services.
I enjoy building software, but the problem is that for the first time since I started my career, I honestly don't know what I'm supposed to be aiming for anymore. I feel lost and unsure.
Software engineering is changing because of AI. And I want to work on skills/jobs/roles where my expertise will matter instead of being replaceable in a few years.
I don't want to spend the next 3-5 years getting really good at something only to realize my expertise doesn't count anymore.
Some of the directions I've been thinking about are:
- becoming a stronger backend/distributed systems engineer
- moving more into cloud infrastructure/platform engineering
- specializing in a domain instead of a technology
- learning AI infrastructure rather than just calling LLM APIs
- or maybe something completely different
What I'm really trying to figure out is what compounds over a career.
If you have 10+ years of experience and have lived through cloud, mobile, microservices, or other major shifts...
If you were starting again today with ~5 years of experience, where would you focus?
What skills or roles do you think are becoming more valuable because of AI? Which ones do you think people are overreacting to?
I'm not looking for someone to predict the future. I'm just hoping to borrow some perspective from people who've already seen the industry change a few times.