Career Pivots For Techies In the Data Age of AI

This is the first of several member requested topics from last month when I specifically requested topics from members. Just a note here that you can all hit me with topic requests and other suggestions any time, that’s what the comments and private messaging are mostly for.

That and jokes.

This post – what’s a techie to do in the age of AI – I don’t want to turn this into a listicle that somehow has “Space Pirate” on it, as tempted as I am to do just that.

But I’ve got a lot to say. And I feel like this is one of the better “advice” posts I’ve done in a year or so.

Cred: I spent more than two years face down in the muddy puddle of what the tech industry workforce was becoming and then had become, starting roughly in 2023 when I was also contemplating and then executing my own temporary exit from that workforce. Now, in late 2026, things have gotten… better?

Better enough for me to dive back in and take an industry role that I found really compelling. Better enough for me to stop screaming about the utter devastation that was occurring in the industry I love, and now just sort of poking at the body with a stick (dead guy joke!).

No, things are getting better. But the changes didn’t get swept under the rug. We’ve all got choices to make if we’re going to get back into, stay in, or work in parallel with the bloated corpse of the tech industry.

I’m so sorry. That was the last one.

Luckily enough, I’ve done all three of those things over the last six months. Here’s what I’m thinking about where we should be positioning ourselves if we want to seek some level of satisfaction with tech work again.

But first, one big fat dire warning.