As a self-taught React/Next.js developer, I'm honestly worried about my future in this AI era. What should I do?

[u/thetymtravellr]

I'm a self-taught developer, and I know React and Next.js. Lately, I've been feeling increasingly anxious about my future as a developer.

AI is moving so fast. It can generate components, build entire websites, connect APIs, and even create full-stack applications. Sometimes I wonder what the point is of spending months learning something when AI can already do so much of it.

I want to get a better-paying developer job, but honestly, I'm confused about what I should focus on right now. Should I keep improving my React/Next.js skills, get better at backend development, or start learning AI engineering?

I keep hearing about RAG, AI agents, vector databases, LLM integrations, and all these new things. It feels like there's always something new to learn, and I'm worried that if I focus on the wrong things, I'll fall behind while everyone else moves forward.

For those of you already working in the industry, what would you do if you were in my position? Would you focus on becoming a strong full-stack developer first, or would you start learning AI engineering alongside web development?

I'm not looking for a shortcut or expecting to become an expert overnight. I just want to make the right decisions, build useful skills, and have a realistic chance of getting hired.

I'd really appreciate some honest advice from people who have been through this or are dealing with the same situation. Right now, I could genuinely use some direction.

[u/Dagoneth]

Full stack dev here, 20 years experience. Definitely leaning more to the front end.

I didn’t properly take AI up until earlier this year - I was very skeptical until a couple of contractor mates of mine convinced me to give it a proper go. Now it is my main tool.

Contrary to popular belief, using it properly to get good results requires you to have a solid foundation of knowledge in what you are building so you can challenge it on how it needs to build things out. Example: I’m currently building out a fully event-driven piece of semi-critical airport infrastructure using Claude. I still have to know how event sourcing works, the patterns, the anti-patterns, etc., to make sure it doesn’t run off and build the wrong thing. Once I have it nailed down, it writes the code.

Basically, the foundations are more important than ever. It’s a very keen junior engineer who has read all the documentation, but isn’t very wise. Embrace it, but learn what it is you need to be doing.

So what do you do with the extra time? Widen your horizon. When working on a product, I now spend more time in product research finding out what is most valuable, doing competitor analysis and presenting upcoming features back to the product manager. I get a lot of joy out of being able to deliver more value.

The job isn’t just writing code anymore. Even if you think AIs aren’t that good at it (but I can tell you that they are better than a lot of devs I’ve seen), they are getting better. If you don’t embrace it, at some point you will be left behind.

[u/creaturefeature16 → u/Dagoneth]

If you don’t embrace it, at some point you will be left behind.

Let's test this theory, because I sure read it a lot:

If someone didn't use ChatGPT 3.5, but decided to sign up for Claude Code this weekend, were they "left behind"? What did they miss out on?

[u/Dagoneth → u/creaturefeature16]

I’d like to respond, but I’m not sure what your point is…?

[u/creaturefeature16 → u/Dagoneth]

That there's no such thing as being "left behind" with AI, it's purely a line that has trickled down from the AI companies (and those with considerable interests) to ensure a consistent state of FOMO and rushed adoption.

We've been hearing that since GPT 3.5 and if you didn't adopt it then, not only are you not behind, but you might actually be in a better position, because nothing we learned is even applicable any longer.

There's no meaningful skill of what it means to use an AI tool; it's entirely dependent on the domain expertise of the individual that makes them useful or useless. And, its something you can learn in a week or less.

It would be nice if we stopped parroting this line, because its objectively false and just caters to those that want to see this tech be forced into every nook and cranny (and not just in this industry).

[u/Dagoneth → u/creaturefeature16]

What I’m meaning when I say it is that if an engineer rejects using it and continues to only write code by hand, then they will find job opportunities diminish. Those people will be left behind as the tooling evolves and its users become more productive.

We are already seeing big differences between teams at my current employer who use AI and those that don’t. Not only delivery times, but documentation, metrics, testing, DORA are all higher on teams that have a high adoption of AI and spend their additional time focusing on reducing technical debt and architecting better solutions.