Programmer 1v1 Interview Series, Episode 14: Accept Anxiety, Embrace Uncertainty

Hello everyone, I am 双越. Author of wangEditor, former senior front-end engineer at Baidu and Didi, elite lecturer at Moco, PMP, author of Frontend Interview Pie.

I've been running a "Programmer 1v1 Interview Series" where I chat one-on-one with developers over WeChat voice or text, listen to their situations and confusions, and give advice. The following is the main content from the 14th participant (no personal sensitive information), shared for your reference.

Basic Info

• Male
• City: Wuhan
• Married: Yes
• Education: Bachelor's
• Years worked: 9
• Company size: Medium
• Currently employed: Yes
• Role: Front-end

Last December the company did a big round of layoffs, this year there are small layoffs every month, and I estimate another big layoff will come at the end of this year.

Front-end has too little say

He is still in a pure front-end position, but has to cooperate with back-end to become full-stack and provide support. Looking at the company's arrangement, it seems they plan to have back-end transition to full-stack, with front-end cooperating first, and eventually front-end may be laid off.

I've never seen this kind of operation before. All the other companies I've talked to have front-end and back-end transition together. I think it's for multiple reasons.

First, in this industry, they mainly build toB management systems. Back-end engineers are more familiar with the business, and front-end doesn't need to know much about the business. Moreover, management system front-end doesn't have particularly hard features; AI coding can handle it completely. That is, front-end is not as important as back-end.

Second, the company's business is declining, there are a lot of idle people, and they want to lay off. Keeping a back-end person is more useful than keeping a front-end person. Under equal conditions, they certainly prioritize letting back-end engineers go full-stack.

Third, I guessed that the front-end team leader doesn't have enough say. He said I guessed right. He said their leader used to be someone who just coded quietly and never fought for anything, even team promotion slots.

People can't change the environment. The big environment can't be changed, the small environment can't be changed either. The company's current state is a small environment. He also knows he will probably be laid off at the end of the year, so he started preparing early. Fortunately, there are six months left.

AI and Agent development hasn't grown as much as imagined

He came to discuss this with me. Actually, I had already summarized this problem. Since AI development, it has entered a bottleneck period. Whether in LLM evolution or AI practical application, it has reached a stable period.

Current AI applications mainly split into three aspects:

• Life: Doubao, Qianwen, and AI customer service, AI search in other apps
• Office: openclaw, workbuddy, etc.
• Production:
  • AI coding
  • AI image and video, short dramas

Among production, whether AI coding or AI video, they are currently efficiency tools that still require human control and error correction. They have no autonomous ability at all so far.

Some people in their company are also doing agent development. First, C-end AI customer service, which is very common. Second, someone is building a workbuddy wheel, which seems like a KPI project.

Although Agent hasn't developed to a revolutionary change, it has become a relatively mature field and will continue to be applied and developed, and will also occupy some developers.

Moreover, the current Agent dividend period. In the training field, it's no longer the case; now there are Agent courses everywhere. But in actual enterprise application, it's still in the promotion period. If you have the chance to make an Agent product, I suggest you bravely try it.

Accept anxiety, embrace uncertainty

As mentioned above, he roughly knows he'll be laid off at the end of the year. Now he's in pain, entangled, anxious about what he should do next.

He's a front-end engineer. Transitioning to full-stack doesn't have the advantage back-end has. What kind of job can he find? He said he has a friend who also transitioned from front-end to full-stack, but after finding a new job, was assigned to the front-end group again.

He's a post-90s, and now he's not far from 35. Even if he finds a new job, how many more years can he work? If he completely loses his job after a few more years, what should he do?

Should he take the opportunity to take the civil service exam? But taking the civil service exam is also very competitive; what he wants, others also want, and the pay is low.

Anyway, he's full of anxiety and questions, but none of these questions have answers, and no one can give answers.

I told him:

First, it's normal to be anxious and to seek certainty now. It's human instinct. Everyone is like this, and I am too.

Second, if you, amid anxiety and uncertainty, insist on finding certainty, that's wrong. You'll become depressed before you find it. If you actually find it, then your illness is probably hard to cure.

Anxiety is the norm, uncertainty is the norm. You need to embrace and accept this state, not forcibly stop it or try to resolve it.

Like one night you can't sleep. Don't force yourself to fall asleep; the more you force, the more you stay awake. If you're suffering from insomnia, turn off the lights, keep your eyes open, lie there without touching your phone, quietly enjoy that moment of lying flat, of having an empty mind. Within half an hour you'll be asleep.

So whether it's anxiety or insomnia, it's normal. Accept it, ignore it, and just go do whatever you should be doing.