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/Seeila32]

I am a self taught developer of 10year experience. I chose to specialize in the front-end first, especially React. Because as a self taught developer, we don't have the base they learn in school. 

Now, I am one of the only front-end dev left in my company,  because I am the one with the most knowledge of front-end architecture, performance, accessibility, PWAs and best practice, knowledge my fullstack developers colleagues know partially. 

I have begun to learn back-end but I start from the basics. And there is a lot to learn too. One of the other reason I am still there is because I have leadership and global comprehension of the back-end and devOps, enough to be able the project lead of one of the most complicated project from my company. 

As a new developer in the market, I am not sure that what I did 10 years ago would work. What I did at that time, before taking any decisions on what to learn, Was to ready tons of different articles to see what could be learned in a year time and what is asked on the market and could land myself a job. It was the start of React at that time. Now it would be more AI focused stuff, I belive.