Why Being an Engineer Means Embracing Your Inner Masochist.

Just some casual thoughts and rambling lately~~

After spending some time torturing AI tools like Cursor and Claude (helpers?), while simultaneously tormenting and praising them, I couldn't help but think of that meme about the boy in the future who survived the AI takeover because he remembered to say "thank you" to ChatGPT.

When you think about it, being an engineer is still a high-risk profession. A software engineer who doesn't work overtime or attend meetings only exists in dreams. The occupational hazards come as a combo of pain: carpal tunnel syndrome, hair loss, and lower back or neck pain. It’s nowhere near as glamorous as new graduates imagine it to be.

I’ve felt this even more strongly since quitting my stable job a year ago. Even though I’m doing what I want to do, I often feel like there are more emergencies now than when I was at a company—especially since AI "unleashed" efficiency.

Lately, a friend of mine has been venting a lot, complaining about PMs and higher-ups squeezing them in the middle. The one getting scolded is the engineer; the one taking the fall is the engineer; and the one doing "full-stack" is also the engineer. Just writing that out feels exhausting. As a promising fresh Junior, starting out is like being a low-level mobster taking the blame for the boss, using the thinnest toilet paper to wipe up the mess left by the higher-ups. But honestly, most Senior engineers survived exactly this path to get where they are.

It made me realize: what is the essence of an engineer? Is it a heart that loves to code? I don’t think so. Since I started using AI for work, my efficiency actually feels worse. That addictive, joyful flow of just writing code has been snatched away by AI. What it leaves behind are the most repetitive parts and the debugging, which has left my motivation a bit low.

So, I think engineers are actually just masochists. We use writing heaps of code and doing a mountain of tasks just to make our lives feel meaningful—but I guess everyone is kind of like that, haha.

Just rambling a bit; a useless engineer leaves his mark here :)