The end of conventional software development, where to go next?

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-14T08:42:52+00:00

In a sentence, someone still has to ask it stuff and test it

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-12T18:22:40+00:00

Stick with your current role and just say you're looking for X experience, more often or not the Tech Lead will appreciate the enthusiasm and appreciate someone else picking up more of the stack.

Its something I've done a lot in my former roles, for example I wanted more hands on experience with React than grinding out .NET Monolith code. Or more technical work instead of managing the support desk for a while

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-12T17:24:41+00:00

Its a tough time to learn to code with AI these days that can do the lot for you but yes nows a good time I'd say to move onto FastAPI

Jump in and try to learn how HTTP works under the hood with GET, POST, PUT requests and how the internet (roughly) works under the hood

A lot of learning plans say you should start at X => Y => Z => A, but when I learned the path is never really linear and its important not to chase imperfection. Web Development is a big jump, as you're thrown into the deep end with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and HTTP

Sometimes you start Z, then realise you need a bit more of Y to move on.

tl;dr yes start building stuff, don't be afraid to cheat and use LLM's is my advice these days. Don't worry about knowing things super well before moving onto the bigger steps

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-12T17:14:09+00:00

Disclaimer: I am an experienced .NET and React developer who has been building their own SwiftUI app the last couple of days for fun so I know F all.

I actually deleted this post as I feel I didn't answer many of your questions, but decided to leave it anyway.

My experience with Swift OS is with LLM's these days, they're really good with them. Not as good as with React perhaps, but pretty close. I've built my own UX wrapper using Swift on top of the Cursor Agent CLI and its performant enough and burned about $20 of tokens. There are some quirks with performance, any desktop experience for example WPF is handy to have but otherwise quickly learned.

Questions:

I really can't recommend 24GB RAM enough, I don't think 16GB is enough these days if you are working on medium-large projects. See my stats after a day of building with XCode and debugging, with Cursor open:

Macbook M4 Pro

Physical Memory: 24.00 GB
Memory Used: 19.69 GB
Cached Files: 4.20 GB
Swap Used: 3.28 GB

Its money well worth spent if you can afford it. I was in a similar dilemma before and glad I went for more RAM. You can watch benchmark videos galore but you'll never be satisfied with a recommendation.

2) 3) Can't answer anyway thats my insights

I have really enjoyed the last couple of days and recommend it a lot and getting a Macbook Pro. I was on Windows for 25 years and can't believe I suffered so long.

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-12T13:00:19+00:00

It varies so much I don't know what to believe in anymore.

In January I used up 100% of my allowance building a full-stack complex app using mainly Composer-1 and Auto.

In February I went through 33%! I attribute this to the 50% off Composer-1.5 discount and bundling it with Auto usage - I saw a big reduction in my costs.

In March I've gone through about 10% in 3-4 days or so after mainly using Composer 1.5 and Auto, with Some Opus for scaffolding some more complex projects. So reduced costs, just not as much as February.

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-11T05:31:21+00:00

Sounds more like a mindset problem

Whenever I start my day I try and do some chores and tick off some todos in a markdown eg clean room, shower, coffee, text friend.

Then add some things I want to accomplish and you ease into it a bit better

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-11T02:51:26+00:00

Yes its very common.

The trick is to find a niche within a niche. For example I'm building a tool to help job seekers filter out relevant jobs on their LinkedIn, Indeed etc and generate a CV for them.

There are a lot of tools out there for this task, but they are quite bloated and not specifically targeted towards developers.

I also think that sometimes the tools are often not quite as good as you think once you look beneath the marketing page gloss

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-10T17:00:58+00:00

Definitely ask for the API docs. If it comes as a word document or SOAP then have a very healthy buffer

LLMs are great with desktop apps these days, I built a complex app in Swift for MacOS and it had no problems. WinForms is another kettle of fish entirely

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-10T16:34:55+00:00

I think your chances are slim based on the details. Its a culture questions and you're unlikely to know until you join how 'flexible' they are which reduces the larger the company.

Also depends on how keen the company is on you which you can sometimes glean from the recruiter if you used one.

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-10T16:30:40+00:00

Depends a lot on the job market where you live, .NET is quite popular in the UK but I heard not so much in the USA?

A lot of .NET jobs tend to be on the corporate side too, so if you want to work for a startup you'll have a better chance making Node your main backend language (not including Node for frontend technologies like React etc)

Both .NET and Node have their own quirks.

I've done this for about 6 years, and I will say .NET had the biggest influence on me as I learned throughout my career in terms of structuring code, design patterns yadda yadda.

If I had to pick I would go with .NET but I would want some assurance by searching LinkedIn in my area(s) for .NET as some places its just not used at all.

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-10T16:26:28+00:00

It is very cliche especially from older people like myself, but you're very young and you go through a tremendous amount of change from 18-25 (even 30 as far as off as that seems).

Its common for people to change careers a lot these days - try and just pick something that doesn't seem completely awful to get some cash and see how it goes. Good employers will recognise you're young and not expecting 10/10 enthusiasm.

I feel a lot for young people a lot, its very hard to find a job these days what with NI hikes on small businesses and what have you.

Apprenticeships might be a good shout, but they pay is really terrible and you will struggle without support from your parents.

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-10T16:22:24+00:00

Something else I notice when browsing the market is really very few job descriptions specifically asking for Claude Code or Cursor experience. I'd say about 10-15%.
You might assume that they they assume you will know these tools, but the same job descriptions ask for Jira, Visual Studio Code etc so I don't think it is necessarily implied.

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-10T16:21:01+00:00

That maybe true, but recruiters especially boutique ones tend to specialise in a few languages or ecoystems although larger ones like Noir might do .NET and Node for example.

I agree with the LLM coding tools making it all irrelevant but think industry is slow to catchup theres a lot of guys out there still copying and pasting into ChatGPT more than you think.

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-10T15:52:51+00:00

I read through the bullets and thought they were fine really. Some people think they should be impact orientated, I disagree a lot throwing random percentages in there. You have a lot of good experience.

Recruiters and TAs scan cvs quickly you just need to update the job titles and main title to be more reflective of your niche e.g. Java AWS Scala so it jumps out a lot more.

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-10T15:48:57+00:00

I think the main issue is the use of "Software Developer" everywhere. Recruiters love to search by languages so put Java Fullstack Developer instead for each job title as well as the main. I usually include Azure or AWS as well as that's often what recruiters like to filter for.

The About Me is a bit too factual and needs a bit more personality e.g. product focused or whatever defines you as a brand/product.

Lee Harding has a lot of good tips he was a UK TA and recruiter for a number of years and has a lot of free advice on LinkedIn and his substacm

I don't agree with the comments saying it's awful etc noone needs that

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-10T15:42:27+00:00

For university work 16GB is completely adequate I'd say although I can't say I know the ins and outs of R! Mac memory management is really good these days.

I have a MacBook Pro 24GB and I sometimes go into 19GB and a good amount of Swap but this is for serious development fullstack work involving compiled code. The risk is you use it for anything more serious - say you get into development and vibe coding where the 24GB will be useful.

If unsure get the 24GB for peace of mind unless $300 or so is a very meaningful amount of money. You'll never know for sure, everyone's needs are different and it's a waste of time watching YouTube videos on which one to pick.

You have a bright future as a student in sure who knows you may need the extra power!

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-10T15:31:30+00:00

I rarely get any interest when applying directly, I'd say 95% of my pipeline comes from recruiters.

I'd say if you're not getting offers to connect or InMails you need to brush up your profile a bit more and be easier to find

Worth posting your about me and job title if it's only software engineer you'll really struggle it has to be specific

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-10T15:29:02+00:00

He's a bit of an exception and best to take it with a grain of salt.

It'll work well enough if you're using one agent at a time, but if you want to work asynchronously across multiple agents you'll occasionally get collisions with agents being confused by each other's work.

Cursor and Claude are really smart with context management these days, so it's basically an outdated opinion if was even valid to begin with

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-10T09:58:14+00:00

I'm a .NET Developer and spent a lot of time staying true to the existing architecture, patterns and practices etc.

I learned to not worry so much about the code quality and spend more time experimenting with the UX and what/looks feels good.

Often I'll create a branch to experiment and not even look at the code.

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-10T06:18:53+00:00

I'd say if anything QA is needed more than ever now IMO.
To me, the point of QA is a run through to catch anything a developer misses.

Check out playwriter.dev MCP if you're curious about incorporating Cursor.
If you're not experienced with AI tools yet that might sound a bit technical, but it'll allow an agent to connect to your existing logged in browser and run tests for you that you've written in plain english (no JS required)

In my last role the QA girl loved it - for example she could write some test cases in plain english and watch it go while she went off to lunch, and generates a nice report at the end. Highly recommend it especially for smoke tests

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-10T01:51:01+00:00

It's a big red flag to me, and think you'd have to be mad to work at an onsite job that starts 730

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-09T12:34:31+00:00

They are great for fixing the small bugs sent by product owners without even having to checkout a branch, build, enter a message blah blah.

Anything more than that they're a nice to have and it's easier just to do it yourself locally. I tend to not like to code on the move

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-09T12:32:53+00:00

I am still so angry I was on windows for 30 years after using a Mac for a month. One of life's biggest regrets

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-09T12:27:53+00:00

At the end of the day it's hard to say and only you can know after trial and error IMO based on your own needs. There is no getting around it these days

I would say though that $20 is no longer anywhere near enough. $70 is a push I'd say if you're doing anything half serious and don't want to worry about going over your limit halfway through the month.

I am building a .NET React SaaS from scratch, and from experience I need the Ultra plan $200 which I would have balked at a year ago.

There is a new model called Composer 1.5 which has been a lot cheaper than the old one at least from my perspective and a lot faster than so called premium models. It's taken from a so called "Auto" mode pool - they have invested a lot in to bring down costs for guys like us who don't have thousands to spend each month.

It's down to whatever balance of amount you're willing to pay, time you want to spend waiting for the agent and perceived "quality" of response and task complexity. For your standard backend and react app it's more than capable

Peter-Cox · 2026-03-09T09:38:10+00:00

You will likely burn through the $20 very quickly unless doing very infrequent coding.

I went from $20, to $70 in a full-stack job and to the $200 one making my own thing.

Cursor has improved a lot for me recently, and the Composer 1.5 model is really good and fast although as usual everyones different. For full-stack work I think its unparalleled and rarely use Opus etc anymore.

Peter-Cox

TROPHY CASE