I had an epiphany about the software industry when I stayed at my parent's place and used a microwave that had the worse UX of any machine I had ever seen. Basically there was no start button, there was no way to increment the timer after you started, there was no '10 second or 1 minute preset' like every other brand and the only way I could figure out to make it 'work' would turn on a super loud fan which would keep running even after the Microwave had been stopped; I had to pull the plug on the thing to make it stop.

It was a popular brand and I suspect it probably sold well. The mind-boggling dysfunction may not have been obvious at a glance when the consumer made the purchasing decision. The UX was so bad, I still have nightmares about it.

As I was trying to use the damn thing as a user and kept running into one hurdle after another, it triggered a flashback of my experience of debugging complex software as a software engineer and I thought to myself "F***, I chose the wrong career. I'm cooked. The user doesn't care. The user doesn't care AT ALL." In that moment, I understood that getting replaced by AI was the least of my problems. Far bigger problems had been there since the beginning. I just didn't notice them.

I just thought about the software engineer who had to implement this retarded UX... I imagine they would put on their resume "Wrote the firmware for <popular electronics company>" and it would sound really good. The worst part is that it's probably not even their fault that their work sucks.

Anyway it just made me realize how unmeritocratic this industry is. We could do a great job or a horrible job and most of the time it has nothing to do with career progression and opportunities.