Look, I’ve been building software in New Zealand for years, and I’ve never seen anything quite like what’s happening right now. The tech job market is absolutely cooked - layoffs everywhere, roles getting shipped offshore, and everyone’s losing their minds about AI taking over. But here’s the thing: while everyone else is panicking, this is actually the best time in history to completely reinvent your career. I’m not talking about finding another corporate gig that’ll probably get cut in the next round anyway. I’m talking about using this chaos to build something entirely your own.
The tools we have access to now are genuinely mental. ChatGPT can help you write code, Claude can debug your shit, and there’s a no-code platform for literally everything. You can spin up a SaaS product over the weekend that would’ve taken a team of developers months to build just a few years ago. Free hosting on Vercel, payment processing through Stripe, and you can market the whole thing on Twitter without spending a cent. The barriers that used to protect established players have basically disappeared. Why sit around waiting for some company to maybe hire you when you could be building your own thing instead? Even if it fails spectacularly, you’ll learn more in six months of building than you would in two years at most corporate jobs.
The traditional career path is broken, but that’s actually brilliant news for anyone willing to embrace the madness. Every company is desperately trying to figure out AI integration, and they’re all looking for people who can actually build with these tools rather than just talk about them. Start a side project this weekend - doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to code properly, AI will fill in the gaps. Document what you’re learning, share your failures on social media, and iterate fast. The worst case scenario is you pick up a bunch of valuable skills while having some fun. The best case? You build something that changes your entire career trajectory. The cost of trying has never been lower, and the upside has never been higher. Stop overthinking it and just start building something.