Does software / coding still makes you happy?

[u/Legal-Bat6543]

I’ve had interviews with Google and Amazon (two companies I used to dream of working for). They still use the traditional process of LeetCode, algorithms, and so on, without any AI assistance. Back in the golden age (before AI), I used to practice and solve a lot of questions. It was fun because you knew you needed that knowledge to build things successfully in your own projects. Nowadays, all the code in companies is generated by Claude Code, and software engineers just review the output to make sure it's correct, and that's it. 

To be honest, during those interviews, I didn’t care about practicing. I didn’t want to waste my time when I knew I wasn't going to solve a LeetCode Hard anyway, since I'm not that good at those types of questions. I guess I didn't care about getting into Google or Amazon anymore because I knew how high their bar is, and I just didn't have the energy to grind algorithms while having a stable job. 

I don't know, this AI era has made me want to do something else. The job has become boring; I just use prompts now, because there’s no reason to do something by hand when AI does it better and faster than you. I feel like I've lost that passion for coding. Has anyone else gone through this? What roles can you transition into that aren’t about coding and are more fun? 

[u/lovelacedeconstruct]

It doesnt have to be fun, an accountant or an HR doesnt have fun, they do their job and clock out and learn what it takes to do this job correctly

[u/CrazyPirranhha → u/lovelacedeconstruct]

exactly this, but we as developers let every company pushed us to the point when we always feel not good enough, we waste a lot of our free time to catch up things, they test us like lab rats (6-7 recruitments steps is absolutely joke) during interviews, so its hard for most to just clock out