- Honest reflections on my job search and AI -

A few days ago, my job search post went semi-viral on linkedin.

I got 30+ DMs with leads, which made me go, "holy shit, I made it."

My last search, before Google, was rough - months of applying online and getting ghosted.

So thank you to everyone who reached out; I don't take it for granted.

My problem now is I think I would enjoy working at literally any of the companies that reached out, so I'm thinking hard about which ones to pursue.

Here is the thing...

The latest qualitative leap in LLMs changed the landscape for me. As Karpathy put it, "coding agents basically didn’t work before December and basically work since".

The way I see it, all software engineers - all office workers, really - are on a conveyor belt inching toward the AI automation grinder.

And my priority should be being toward the end of the line.

That's the lens through which I look at my job search now.

In a sense, I think I'm already in a good position simply by keeping up with AI. I'm a Claude code power user, I've built agent harnesses, I've tinkered with Ralph loops and clawdbots; I'm the one in my friend groups helping others catch up.

But in terms of *what* to work on, I think the safest bet is to be the one building the AI that automates others' jobs.

The frontier labs are probably the best place to be right now. Good alternatives would be working on AI tooling at other companies or at successful AI startups (though there's a risk that a frontier lab suddenly drops a new "feature" that eats their market, like ChatGPT web search vs Perplexity, or Claude code vs Cursor).

In terms of location, SF is probably best. Basically, you'd want to be as close as possible to the people cranking the grinder.

My personal preference is remote, but I'm doubting that choice; the closer your interaction surface is to that of an agent's, the easier you are to replace.

Anyway, that's my bet for staying relevant - and what I've been telling my friends worried about their jobs.

If you work at a frontier lab or AI tooling company - whether you're hiring or know someone who might be - I'd love to chat.