Is Coding still worth it in 2024?

I’m a Former Google Engineer — Here’s Why Coding is Not Worth it Anymore

6 min readJan 2, 2024

An Ex-Tech Lead’s Insights on Coding in the AI Era

The coding dream is fading as the field becomes oversaturated. Here’s what today’s landscape looks like and why entrepreneurship may be the better path.

As a former Google and Meta engineer and tech lead, I may be one of the most qualified people to answer whether coding is still worth pursuing as a career path. My unequivocal answer is no — coding is not worth it anymore.

We’re entering an age of AI chatbots, no-code solutions, an oversaturated job market, and a general loss of interest from consumers in downloading new apps or visiting new websites. Software engineering may be on its way to becoming just another dead-end job, if it wasn’t already.

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Every generation we see the collapse of entire career paths. Over the past year I haven’t coded at all. I’ve been traveling — I just got back from an amazing trip to Costa Rica. There was zip lining, sloths, monkeys — it was incredible. When I sat down to dinner with other travelers, they didn’t want to talk about coding at all. It bored them. They wanted to talk about sports, music, culture — anything but codes and algorithms.

Let’s coin a new term — the coding delusion. It’s much like the college delusion, where people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and four years of their life on a useless degree they thought would lead to success. But it really just leads them to Starbucks barista jobs, overqualification, and student debt.

The coding delusion is similar — people put coding on a pedestal, viewing it as the gateway to become the next tech millionaire or billionaire like Zuckerberg, Bezos, Musk, or Jobs. But this is not reality — that dream peaked 20 years ago.

In Silicon Valley and with software engineers, you see this attitude that if you’re not constantly coding, you’re not doing real work. That coding complex algorithms and data structures in C++ is the only valuable skill. They’re stuck in the past, missing the social media and no-code revolutions minting millionaires today.

The Rise of the Code Influencer Peddling Outdated Dreams

Most internet usage today is consolidated into top social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. However, you now have “code influencers” on these platforms — people who have never coded selling the dream that you can become a cool programmer or software engineer.

Their whole identity is programmer memes, inside jokes, and idolizing tech CEOs. It’s a throwback to when coding was seen as a way to get rich quick. But these code influencers keep selling impressionable people the false promise that learning to code will make them the next Zuckerberg.

I’m one of the few engineers willing to tell you the reality — most developers have their heads stuck in the sand. They completely miss how the landscape has evolved. They miss the rise of social media marketing and no-code solutions minting millionaires.

They think STEM degrees are still the path to success, looking to old ways of making money. Getting 2 weeks vacation at a FAANG company for 300k a year looks amazing when you’re heads down coding.

But they completely miss the new generation of entrepreneurs building online empires as media influencers, podcasters, creators — coming between the consumer and the apps engineers build.

How React Developers Became the New Labor Force

React is the language of the coder slaves. It was created by Facebook for their army of junior engineers who lacked skills. React is a dumbed-down language where you just wire up buttons and state — no algorithms or data structures required.

So if you’re just a React developer, you’re not actually a real engineer. You’re doing rote work that will soon be automated by AI like ChatGPT. React developers are just coder automatons and digital laborers.

It’s worth noting I’m one of the few willing to tell you this blunt truth. Most developers have egos and think they’re gods for using Vim keybindings efficiently or installing Arch Linux fast.

But while developers compete to be the best coder and think STEM skills are everything, the rest of the world has moved on more interesting, faster ways to make money than 9–5 coding jobs.

The Outdated 60s Lifestyle of the Software Engineer

The software engineer role was founded in the 1960s for a sedentary lifestyle. Make 60–70k a year (not even keeping pace with inflation), work 9–5, retire at 60. That was considered decent back then.

But today that’s far too slow, low pay, and low status. Coding is becoming grunt work. There are faster ways to make money and gain status now.

If you want to be top 10% today, consider going the entrepreneurial route instead. Yes it’s very hard work, but it’s easier than ever today to build a business. Being an entrepreneur is higher status than just being another coder cog in a corporate machine.

Two Types of Programming: One for Entrepreneurs, One for Worker Bees

There are two types of programming:

Coding for entrepreneurship
Coding for corporate slavery

Skills like unit testing, scrum, agile, code cleanliness, etc make you a good employee. But they don’t make you money directly.

Skills that make you money as an indie developer or entrepreneur are PHP, WordPress, Javascript, etc. That’s why PHP devs drive Lambos — they possess monetizable skills.

Don’t get me wrong, I love coding. I think about going back to Google as an IC sometimes. But I’m past that now.

You rarely see older engineers coding. It’s like cooking — as you level up, you have to become the chef managing others. Coding is for those still grinding.

Outdated University Degrees Lead to Outdated Careers

The coding dream is built on an outdated university degree teaching outdated information. If you went through a full CS program, you’d learn nothing about AI or ChatGPT.

You’d learn highly specialized skills like building an OS, database from scratch, or compilers. Sure, if you want to work at Oracle optimizing databases, go for it. But that’s not what most envision as a coder.

Information moves so quickly today. Academia can’t keep up. You’ve got new opportunities like crypto, web3, creator economies on YouTube/TikTok that universities ignore.

These new technologies are fueled by data, not coding. There’s not much to code except some UI wrappers and API plumbing. The real leverage is understanding the tech to tweak parameters and put together working prototypes.

Coding is No Longer High Status Work — Entrepreneurship Is

Recently I read the book “The Vanderbilts” by Anderson Cooper. It profiles ultra-elite rich families obsessed with gaining status in society. They throw lavish parties trying to get into prestigious social circles because to them, status is everything.

But software engineering trades everything for money — your time, looks, health, personality. You sacrifice it all to code for a salary.

Actors, painters, novelists — those careers get social status because they’re desirable even if you’re already rich. But coding is grunt work — you might as well be a janitor.

If you want money and status today, consider being an entrepreneur instead. Build something for yourself instead of making another FAANG company richer.

Entrepreneurship is the new high status career — not just being another replaceable code monkey. Don’t buy into the coding dream delusion — it’s outdated and overhyped. Chart your own path to success instead.

Key Takeaways:

Coding is becoming oversaturated and low pay for the effort required
Code influencers sell newbies an outdated dream of getting rich coding
Software engineering today is corporate grunt work, not glamorous like it used to seem
Entrepreneurship offers more money, freedom, and status than coding jobs
University CS degrees teach specialized skills that industry doesn’t need anymore
Data and no code solutions now create new opportunities, not algorithms
Success today requires business and communication skills, not just coding ability

The world is changing rapidly. Don’t assume the coding dream still exists as it used to. Carefully consider if learning to code is the right path for you, or if creative entrepreneurship is a better strategy in this day and age. The easy default path of being a code monkey may no longer make sense.

What are your thoughts on the changing landscape for programmers and developers? I’d love to hear your perspectives in the comments! Let me know if you see the writing on the wall as well or if you disagree. I’m always open to conversation around these important career topics.