The further we go, the stronger the feeling that a significant part of the enterprise world is simply hopelessly behind the times.

They still hire people as if it isn't 2026, but some old world where you have to go through a ritual of dumb questions, prove something in an interview, and show that you're worthy of entering their temple of legacy processes.

And then the same companies complain about losses, inefficiency, layoffs, and "market problems." What market problems? You yourselves live as if AI doesn't exist or as if it's a toy for juniors. Meanwhile, any strong developer already uses AI not as a replacement for the brain, but as an accelerator. Arguing with this is about as strange as once arguing with the appearance of IDEs, autocomplete, or the internet.

It's especially funny to hear that AI writes "unreliably" or "in a junior way." Excuse me, what did it learn on? Wasn't it, among other things, your collective code legacy? The problem isn't that AI is bad. The problem is that many companies find it uncomfortable to accept: their way of working is no longer the only correct one.

But that isn't even what irritates me most.

What irritates me is that all this supposedly "good work" often no longer enables a normal life. Not yachts, not Ferraris, not palaces. Just a calm, normal life: housing, freedom, the possibility to travel, not living in permanent catch-up mode.

When even with what looks like a good income you realize that an apartment, a financial foundation, and a sense of stability are still somewhere far away — you start looking very differently at the market, at "prestigious work," and at the whole corporate spectacle.

And here the main question is no longer "where do I find a job."

It's "which model of life and income still makes sense at all."

— — —

A few more thoughts in the same direction — not on emotion this time, but as an attempt to assemble the picture.

The career ladder as a concept was put together in the 20th century for a completely different economy: predictable salary growth, affordable mortgages, asset inflation that didn't dramatically outpace income inflation, and an unspoken contract — "give us thirty years and you'll get a house, a pension, and the feeling of a life." That entire model is quietly falling apart, but companies keep offering the same deal: give us your eight to ten best hours, we'll give you predictability. Only predictability no longer buys what it used to.

In parallel, AI changes the leverage equation. Previously, to launch a product you needed to assemble a team of five to ten people, find investment, justify the hypothesis. Now one strong developer with the right toolset ships an MVP over a weekend. That doesn't mean any such product will take off — it won't. It means the cost of an experiment dropped by an order of magnitude. And whoever isn't ready to experiment starts looking foolish, not relative to geniuses, but relative to their own capabilities.

So the "find a better job" model is gradually ceasing to be the only meaningful one. A new one is appearing: a portfolio of bets. Somewhere — a stable contract or part-time that covers the base. Somewhere — your own products, which may give you nothing, or may grow into an asset. Somewhere — expertise packaged in a form you can sell without an hourly rate. This isn't for everyone and it isn't "better." It's just a different form of stability in a system where the old form has stopped working.

And the saddest part isn't even about enterprise. The saddest part is that many companies that could give strong people both stability and space for their own experiments and a share in the value they create, instead choose to defend the process. That's a rational choice for someone who thinks in terms of the quarter. And irrational for someone who thinks in terms of "where will we get people from in five years."

And people are already thinking in those terms. Just not out loud, and not in interviews.