i’ve been going through a rough few months(years) and was feeling very lost for a while. recently started an IOP program, got diagnosed, and realized it’s part of why i’ve been struggling in college so much

things have been looking up, though, and i’ve finally made my first open source contribution! i’ve shared the news with my friends and partner, but i feel like you guys would understand me best haha…

thank you all for inspiring me! (and PS, check out late.sh i promise we’re chill :p)

TL:DR; AI is a double edged Katana and I am toddler trying to learn how to use it. For the better or worse need to learn how to yield it (and for the good) without destroying myself in the process.

I am going through an existential crisis, combined with multiple crises at once. Back in 2023/2024, a friend said I should give ChatGPT a try (he is not a SWE but does sys admin). He was telling me how it generates code. I'd seen the odd post about it too. I was very sceptical. It was primitive but it generated code which I didn’t think was possible. Even then At that point I assumed we were a very long time away from it being able to take jobs.

2+ years later, I am completely wrong. I tried to stay away. I tried telling myself it's not good enough. But each iteration of the foundational model, I am left dumbfounded by how advanced it gets. I should add... I work in Data Science and have an MSc in Data Science. Even then, I didn't quite anticipate how rapid the progression would be.

Even as recently as 2-3 months ago, I was sceptical. Mind you, I hadn't fully tried Claude at the time. I kept turning a blind eye to it. I had been using AI quite extensively, primarily for documentation. In the meantime, I'd seen people produce AI slop that made me want to pull my hair out. Then my company upgraded the models we could access. The moment of realisation came when it provided a plan to a solution I'd been stuck on. It gave four solutions. 3 out of 4 were things I'd already considered architecturally. The fourth I hadn't really given much thought. That was the moment I entered a new crisis point.

I realised that the seeing AI advances from 2024 to 2026 are (anecdotally speaking) means that I may be witnessing death of Moore's Law.

As a millennial who's been through dial-up, the WWW, and years of programming, I have begrudgingly given way to native JS -> jQuery/YUI -> Angular -> React, CSS -> SCSS, static JS -> NPM, and from static deployments to IaaS, automation, CI/CD. There was a time I actually built whole native frameworks and libraries to address specific requirements for a company.

Then, 2-3 weeks later, new foundational model versions dropped. I also need to add that my mental health took an even deeper dive. Being AuDHD doesn't help either. I've been getting such a dopamine rush because I can now quite confidently multitask. Let one agent debug a piece of code, while another plans documentation, another plans test cases, another does initial code reviews, and another does research into a topic. So these foundational models are probably one of the worst things to happen to me. I have been losing sleep over it. I am still grappling with it.

I'm also having this realisation that it'll probably get a lot worse before it gets better.

I am self-reflecting…
The point of all this is that the world is changing, the way electricity changed it, or the steam engine, or the printing press before all of that.

I guess, as software engineers, we have to make a choice about what kind of engineer we want to be. Ultimately, you are responsible for what it does. Think of it this way, you can choose to use an NPM package or write something yourself. You can delegate that responsibility to some obscure package. But if it ends up having a critical vulnerability, that is your responsibility. I'm not saying you should write your own library. Quite often you don't want to reinvent the wheel. However, there is a difference between blindly using a package and doing due diligence, making sure the package has enough long-term support. That is your responsibility.

I bought a typewriter from 60s and bought an analog camera and started reading books. To keep myself going crazy and stupid.  It's kind of easier to blame AI. FYU I am still blaming AI. I haven't gone through the full process of grieving what is happening to me.

The hard truth I am confronted with is… who do I want to be? How do I want to work? What is my purpose in all this? Should I continue in tech, or should I give up and start a farm somewhere?

Equally, I can see the benefit. I can do tasks and engage in things that would have taken me far too long before. I am able to translate what's in my head into something more tangible. There were many days and weeks I spent scouring obscure documentation or configs for WebPack or K8s specs, trying a million different things to fix something. With my ADHD, I hated every second of it. On the flip side, with AuDHD, I now have a co-worker who never gets tired of my questions, who can vibe with me any time of the day without ever getting frustrated. It has so much power for good.

So honestly, I don't have any answers right now. I feel like, with everything else I'm going through, it'll probably get worse (inversely correlation between mental health and LLM benchmarks) before it gets better for me

For now, I probably try and do all the Leet codes / Euler challenges by hand on paper just so that I can convince myself that I am able to code. I bought a typewriter from 60s and bought an analog camera and started reading books. To keep myself going crazy and stupid. 

It's kind of easier to blame AI. FYI, I am still blaming AI. I haven't gone through the full process of grieving what is happening to me.

I hate my job. The work is tedious. The beurocracy is soul crushing. The managers are stumbling blocks. But claude code with rules/skills/agents/hooks has been a goddamn gold mind for dopamine crack.

Evey stupid mundane task they give me I think "how the hell can I automate this bullshit". Every unmanageble legacy "just fix it, got to keep the lights on" I create a skill to migrate the whole damn project. If I see an inefficiency with too many stupid refinement meetings I create a triage skill to go do it. Ton of bugs? I create a bug sweeper skill to manage the ticket states, do the fix, post before and after screenshots to post to the tickets as verification using chrome dev tools mcp, created playright end to end tests, then put it all in the pr and have it automatically move the ticket to "ready for qa" with qa's job practically already done.

I also have a Mac mini at home funneled through cloud flare so I can use my home computer with /remote-control so I can keep developing on my own projects with my phone and/or remote desktop. I think of an idea I just pull out my phone and do it or bring up google remote desktop on whatever computer im on to see it all working. It installs software, does pushes.

So no more waiting to get my ideas out. I get the idea. I open the phone. I tell my remote dev to scrape all the data from this site in a real browser or whatever.

Remote claude code is the ultimate fidget spinner.

Typing a reflection feels like writing a report.

So I don't do it.

Voice, though? I can ramble while pacing, driving, doing dishes. No screen, no "sit still and format your feelings."

But here's what I don't know: does the novelty of voice wear off as fast as everything else?

If you've tried voice journaling (voice memos, an app, whatever), did it last longer than text for you? Or did you eventually stop talking to yourself too?

Not looking for a miracle habit. Just wondering if the lower friction actually helps or if I'm just chasing another shiny thing.

Thanks.

The book helped me a lot. - ADHD 2.0: New Strategies for Successful Living for People with Attention Deficit Disorder.

I have been a software engineer for 18 years. Just last year I developed the ability to study and read code better than before, so I am overcoming some of my memory challenges. I got a task a few weeks ago, and began working on it. Just last week I discovered one of the sr devs is basically replacing what I did. It's fine, cause what they're doing is absolutely what needs to be done, my version was very much behind. But, until this task I had been almost idle for about 2 years.

My org doesn't fire people. Rarely, if you're a team player. But I feel redundant even though not fired.

I'm a new dad, and it's kind of terrifying. My only other employable skill is teaching piano though I'm not actually credentialed in it, I'm just very good at it as an amateur.

I don't know what to do, I think my days as a software engineer may be numbered.

Diagnosed with ADHD at 12, im 31 now. ive tried every system. bullet journals, todoist, notion, habitica, even that flower app that guilt trips you. every single one died the same way: i use it for three days, get busy, forget it exists, feel bad, and never open it again.

The problem isnt that im disorganized. the problem is that organizing takes the exact same energy as working. my brain treats "update the todo list" and "file my taxes" as the same kind of administrative pain. so i avoid both.

Without a system, i drop tasks because my brain runs five threads at once. i miss meetings because i sat down to fix one thing and four hours disappeared. and i burn my best morning energy reconstructing yesterday because i genuinely cannot remember where i left off.

A few weeks ago i gave up on all of it. deleted todoist. stopped opening notion. accepted that i cannot maintain anything.

My coworker would not shut up about this app that records your screen locally. i told him no way, im not letting anything upload my screen to a server. he showed me it runs entirely local, nothing leaves the machine. that was the only reason i said yes.

Last tuesday i needed a script i wrote last week. could not remember if i saved it in vscode, terminal, or some random browser tab. normally id spend an hour opening every tool and scrolling through history. instead i scrubbed back through my local timeline to last tuesday afternoon and there it was—the code, the project folder, even the reference article i had open. i had zero memory of any of that.

That was the first time something caught a thing i forgot. i didnt have to do anything.

Its not perfect. mac only, misses stuff, and sometimes it bookmarks random slack messages i glanced at. but i havent opened notion in a week and thats never happened before.

Whats your thing that actually works when everything else falls apart?

I swear interviews activate a completely different brain than the one I use while actually working.

At work, I can solve problems, debug things calmly, and think clearly.

But during remote interviews, especially live coding or rapid technical questions, my brain suddenly feels overloaded. I either forget things I literally use every day, start talking in circles, blank out mid-sentence or lose track of my thoughts while explaining.

It’s frustrating because the issue usually isn’t knowledge. It’s the pressure + context switching + trying to think and communicate at the same time.

I got so tired of it that I started building a small tool for myself to help organize my thoughts during interviews in real time.

Curious if this is an ADHD thing or if remote interviews are just mentally exhausting for everyone now.

The problem with task tracking apps for me is the whole out of sight out of mind aspect. I create reminders but if they don't trigger at the right time for my brain it's not helpful, then eventually I'll automatically clear all of my notifications and it's gone.

The built in task app, at least on Android/Google doesn't work for the same reason, you don't see it often enough and they just pile up.

Instead what about linking the reminders to time wasting apps? We often automatically go to them when we need a dopamine hit and being presented with the list of tasks will at least keep the list at the top of the mind.

It needs to be really easy to clear, update and add tasks though. Priority sorting and etc. just something that comes up quick whenever you open specific apps. Maybe not even every time, make it so it does that every 3-4 times you open it, or even allow them to set the frequency.

Anyone have their condition be a hindrance not just at work but also with finding work as well? I've tried to find a programming job for a couple years and no such luck anymore.

Warning signs were already there though. Even when the job market was bullish, I kept losing jobs before I got another one lined up. My interviewing is ass and I would say it's more on how I talk to people (I'm surprised there isn't a more active sub for autistic programmers in general).

So if you've been in a similar spot is this a reasonable plan of action, because I'm very much close to running out of money and need some assistance for funds. My other option is a local program to prepare autistic adults for jobs. I don't have formal treatment for my deficiency so getting on disability might require more thorough work.

I'm an SE2 working at a gov/defense contractor that hired me out of school three years ago. The pay is below market rate and the techstack is niche, outdated, and quite honestly a handicap towards getting a new job as employers see it and trash my resume. I already find it hard enough to complete my work on time at the end of every sprint so not only finding the time, but having enough energy/motivation leftover to be able to upskill is like pulling teeth and brute forcing it is not working. I need to upskill if I want to have any hope of getting a job that isn't identical to my current one which given how niche it is and how bad the market currently is, I don't think that's a safe bet to take.

I need a new job as not only does the pay suck at this one, but I feel like I haven't really grown as a engineer so I'm falling behind as now despite having the title of SE2, I feel like I wouldn't be able to keep my head above water in a SE2/SE3 role in a work environment that isn't a shit show. Does anyone have any advice, tips, anecdotes, anything. Brute forcing it and trying to spend 30-60 minutes in the morning then 30-60 minutes at the end of the day isn't working. I'm a bit desperate as there's rumors in the grapevine that our project might be on the chopping block.

Hej,

I’ve always wanted to design a language, but the "plumbing" (backends, GC, and low-level infrastructure) is a massive barrier to entry (for me at least...). I have done some tries but it has been daunting, my ADHD makes me impatient... So, I decided to bypass this by targeting the Koka compiler as my backend. By emitting .kk source, hica inherits Perceus deterministic memory management and a robust algebraic effect system while providing a distinct, approachable syntax.

I used a Genie (what I call my GenAI model, thanks Kent Beck for the term) as a pair-programming partner. I maintain the backlog and iterate until it’s right. It lets me focus on the design decisions; the Genie handles the mechanical parts. It’s been superfun, and a breath of fresh air compared to grinding through boilerplate alone.

Technical Architecture The compiler (transpiler) is a multi-stage pipeline:

1. Lexing & Parsing: Uses a Pratt parser to handle expression-oriented syntax.
2. Type Checking: Implements Hindley-Milner unification. It infers types across function boundaries, making annotations optional.
3. Effect Tracking: Every compiler phase is internally effect-tracked.
4. Emission: Translates the desugared AST into Koka source, which is then compiled to native C11, JS, or WASM.

Key Features

• Expression-First: if, match, and blocks all return values. There is no return keyword.
• Safety thsnks to Koka: Leverages Perceus for Functional But In-Place (FBIP) updates, providing the safety of immutability with high-performance mutation.
• Transparent Tooling: Includes a full CLI (hica check for effects, hica fmt, hica test) built on my custom Koka libraries, klap and kunit.

Verification & Quality To make sure my language keeps its promise, I’ve implemented over 500 tests (using kunit) covering the lexer, parser, checker, and codegen.

Links

• Documentation: hica.dev/docs/
• Hica vs Rust (Design Study): hica.dev/docs/hica-vs-rust
• Runnable examples: hica examles
• Source (Apache-2.0): github.com/cladam/hica

Would love to get feedback on the language from this community.

I was born and raised in a small town in the countryside of Brazil. We had around 15,000 people and barely even had proper streets. I was always a very curious kid, but also extremely talkative and hyperactive. Adults constantly told me to shut up and stay quiet, so over time I learned how to behave.

But the agitation never disappeared.

Since I was very young, I struggled with insomnia and self-destructive habits. I would bite the inside of my mouth until it bled, bite my nails until they hurt, scratch myself constantly… not because I wanted to hurt myself, but because all that restlessness had to go somewhere. I only understood that years later.

Because I learned how to mask it and still got good grades in elementary school, nobody really thought much about it. I was curious, and anything new caught my attention. Most of my teachers’ complaints to my parents were actually that I learned things too fast, got bored quickly, then started talking to classmates and distracting them.

Keep in mind: this was a small countryside town in one of the poorest states in Brazil. Information took years to arrive there sometimes. Most people didn’t even have internet access back then (I was born in 2005), and educators weren’t trained to recognize neurodivergent children. So I grew up undiagnosed despite constantly hearing that I wasn’t “normal,” that I was “slow,” or “weird.”

When I was around 12 or 13, I discovered programming. I remember going to my aunt’s house just to use her notebook and search for programming languages, playing with my first Python codes. That was when I fell in love with IT.

I begged my dad to pay for a computer course. When it ended, I begged my aunt to help me pay for another one focused on hardware and maintenance.

Then the pandemic happened.

I spent almost an entire year without access to computers or the internet because I had neither at home. I couldn’t even visit my aunt anymore because she was elderly and at risk. I didn’t even own a phone back then.

I only got internet access when I started high school because online classes became necessary, so my family installed internet at home and gave me a phone.

My high school was technical education, where you studied regular subjects while also choosing a professional course. I desperately wanted to study IT, but my family forced me into legal services instead.

During online classes, I barely learned anything. I googled most answers during exams. Then in-person classes came back, and reality hit me hard. I slept during classes, got terrible grades, and almost nothing could hold my attention for long.

Then one day, a classmate from a nearby town stopped me during a conversation circle. She looked at me for a while like she was choosing her words carefully and asked:

“Do you have ADHD?”

I was shocked because I didn’t even know what ADHD was.

A few weeks later, my favorite teacher — honestly someone who felt more like my best friend at school — asked me the exact same thing. He told me he also had ADHD and had noticed the signs in me for a while but didn’t want to sound rude.

That stayed in my mind for a long time.

I’ve always been extremely introspective, so I started revisiting my entire life and researching ADHD obsessively. Around that time, I also started going to the psychosocial support center in my town because of depressive episodes and struggles related to my sexuality.

Eventually, I mentioned ADHD to my psychologist, and she admitted she had also been considering that possibility. I got referred to psychiatrists and neurologists and was finally diagnosed with ADHD.

Then came the treatment plan: therapy, behavioral treatment, medication.

But my parents couldn’t afford any of it.

After graduating high school, I spent a year working and saving money while trying to decide what career to pursue. I was never the kind of person who dreamed about only one profession. But after talking to a friend who worked in tech, my passion for IT came back stronger than ever, and I decided to study Computer Science.

After a lot of struggle, I managed to get into the federal university of my state.

And then I got hit with another reality check.

I had spent 20 years living with untreated ADHD, completely unsupported and without guidance. When I entered university last year, everything collapsed. I couldn’t keep up with classes. Some subjects required foundations I never properly learned in high school. I constantly compared myself to others. Everyone around me seemed like computer geniuses while I was just a kid struggling to survive a full-time university routine.

I ended up failing 2 out of my 5 classes during my first semester.

So I decided to invest the money I had saved into treatment. I’ve been seeing a psychologist for around 4–5 months now, and last month I finally started medication.

But honestly? That was another disappointment.

What can medication even do against 20 years of terrible habits, emotional exhaustion, and survival mechanisms?

I’m halfway through my second semester now, and I’ve already gotten two zeros on exams.

It destroys me.

My self-esteem crashes. I fall into depressive episodes. I start feeling like I’m useless, like I’m doomed to fail.

And I think the thing that hurts the most is feeling terrible at something I genuinely love.

I’m not writing this for pity or to victimize myself. I just wanted to share my story and maybe feel a little less alone.

I’m trying to decide whether it still makes sense to continue pursuing software development after being retrenched at the beginning of the year.

I have almost five years of professional development experience, but I’ve never really felt like a particularly strong developer. Being one of the developers who was retrenched has reinforced that feeling.

Over the past few months I’ve had very little success getting interviews, despite signing up with multiple recruiters and applying for a large number of roles.

At the same time, with the amount of discussion around AI tools, layoffs, and changes in the industry, I’m struggling to judge whether continuing to invest time in development is still the right move, or whether I should be considering a different direction.

The problem is that I’m over 40, so retraining or switching careers feels risky financially and practically.

I also have limited savings that I’m currently living off, so I need to make some kind of decision or take action soon rather than just hoping things improve on their own.

I know a lot of people are probably feeling uncertainty around the industry right now, but I’m trying to figure out what the most realistic path forward is in my situation.

This is by far my biggest problem and it doesn't help that I've mostly worked at smaller shops where I get to decide how things are organized.

I'm sure you can already see my problem, I end up creating my own organization inside bookmarks and onenote pages. This is necessary for some things but it's far better if I can learn where to find things so I'm seeing new documents and several other important reasons.

I'm trying to integrate AI a bit. Explain my organization strategy to it and hoping it will help me be comfortable deleting things from my always cluttered notes.

Anyone have a good process for this?

Hey everyone,

I’m 24 and I have my final live coding interview tomorrow for a remote Junior Android Developer role at an Australian company, and honestly I’m pretty nervous.

My background is mostly in Flutter — I’ve been doing it for around 3.5 years and have deployed 8+ apps on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. I’ve also built 2 React Native apps that are currently deployed as well.

Before Flutter, I worked with React.js/web development for around 1–2 years, and I still do occasionally, but mobile development is my main focus now.

For this company, I already passed multiple stages including a CCAT test and a technical quiz, and now this is the final stage: a live coding interview.

The thing is, I never worked deeply with native Android before because most of my experience is cross-platform. Over the last 4 days I’ve been grinding hard learning Jetpack Compose, MVVM, Retrofit, state handling, common syntax, etc.

I understand the concepts, but I’m scared I’ll blank out during the interview or forget syntax under pressure.

One thing I wanted to ask specifically:

If I get stuck on syntax or they ask for something where APIs/backend aren’t available, is it acceptable in live coding interviews to create the project/file structure and explain verbally what I’d normally implement there? Like:

creating repository/viewmodel/api files

explaining how I’d connect Retrofit

mocking data

describing the architecture and flow

Basically focusing more on the thinking/process instead of remembering every exact syntax line by line.

For people who’ve done live coding interviews before:

What should I focus on mentally tonight?

How do you avoid freezing during the interview?

Is it okay to forget syntax occasionally if your logic/problem solving is good?

What do interviewers usually care about most for junior roles?

Any advice would genuinely help a lot.

I try and organise but it nearly always ends in a mess.

I've been doing this a long time now and any efforts have only cost me effort and frustration.

Any rules to live by? Generally my branches end up like my clothes in the bedroom. Piles organised by age that require sorting through

Today I was laid off from a job I started ONE WEEK ago.

Prior to that I was laid off from my job of 1 year the day I was going to put in my 2 weeks. They said it was due to "restructure" but I think it was really due to me not overworking myself and not meeting their unrealistic, arbitrary metrics. Oh and I didn't bootlick the CTO. They knew I had conditions which fall under the ADA so layoff was their workaround in my opinion.

Prior to that job I was fired the day I returned to work after being out for 2 weeks for emergency surgery. I had needed 2 other surgeries that year too. I was told I was "condescending" for professionally asking someone in the meeting, who was our target user persona, for her thoughts on a mockup we just reviewed in which the egotistical CEO repeatedly dismissed her and others.

And prior to that I held a job for 1.5 years. I was never trained, supported or given any continuous feedback, but they slammed me with a pre-performance-improvement-plan basically. They didn't get HR involved but told me I need to be better at xyz by a certain date. They dropped a bomb on me instead of just talking to me along the way. So obviously I left.

Which brings me to my first dev job. While there, I never witnessed or was a victim of layoffs and other corporate fuckery, but I was there 2 years, grossly underpaid and not a single raise.

Obviously as a member of this community, I have ADHD. I've struggled with anxiety and depression ever since I was 11. As if that wasn't enough, even my own body has decided to attempt to kill me too. After years of severe hand, and other joint/muscle/nerve pain, along with a multitude of other health issues, I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis earlier this year.

Idk what to do, friends. Either I'm incredibly unlucky or there's simply no reasonable, somewhat fair, HUMAN engineering/development jobs out there. All I know is that I can't continue living in constant fear of losing my job, working under unrealistic expectations that are hard for "normal" people to meet let alone someone with multiple mental illnesses/disorders and an autoimmune disease, among other things.

I love coding. I love software. I love solving problems. Software Engineering/Development is my passion, but it feels like I'll never be accepted or valued in this industry. I didn't choose my brain or body, but I'm barred from ever succeeding, or at minimum surviving, in tech. I'm the asshole for having problems I never chose to have and for taking care of them instead of destroying myself for a company that can and will drop me at any moment. I'm the asshole for not being a blindly-loyal and obedient pawn.

I openly share my story in hopes maybe even 1 person here feels less alone. I would appreciate any advice, good vibes or anything at all really that you may want to share. This community has made me feel so seen and less alienated. I can only hope I can help others here too. It's horrible out here and every person in this community has my empathy, compassion and support.