producing code is just part of the programming, albite a very important part. from my very limited exp, i say programming is more about ...reasoning about behavior, managing complexity, making tradeoffs, handling failure, and building things that still make sense six months later.

AI gets your there faster, but you still need to do the work.

Also think about.. understanding correctness, performance, memory, concurrency, failure modes, and long-term maintainability is another.

just IMHO.

Ok I have to ask you are you in it for the paycheck or the passion? How you answer determines your path. If a paycheck optimize for the largest salary you can conceivably obtain based on your ability and education. If passion follow your passion, get educated and eventually you will find some work in your field. The passion is contagious and will positively affect your life in ways you can't even imagine at your age currently (self satisfaction plays a lot into child rearing). Notice I didn't say money. The day I stop learning is the day I die. My advice, don't stop learning.

All reasonable questions that are very hard to answer.

Consider that as of (always and) 2026 you are held accountable for whatever AI-slop* you produce. Will that change within 5 years? The mindset is shifting from doing the right thing, to instructing the AI to do the right thing. Even if you're not responsible for the instructing part (e.g. using AI export feature drafts, to use an AI software factory to refine and implement), you're still owning said implementation in the end because you're responsible for the refinement and review. You should know how to do the work and reason about it—but you're also responsible now for correcting AI—less work but more responsibility.

You have to build something for yourself that makes money.

> I’ve been trying to learn Coding, Data Structures, Algorithms, Design Patterns, Best practices etc… but will I still need that? Am i wasting my time? Can really AI do all this, and actually do it better?

Yes. No. No. Not really.

I think you should double down on this. You can only know when the AI is wrong if you know the fundamentals and the interviewers will test you on that.

If it goes wrong, you are paid to explain exactly why it went wrong. Not just writing the code; generated or not.

> How will DEV interviews look like in 5 years? Is LeetCode still a thing now?

They will just do Leetcode in person and quiz you with a whiteboard.

> Did I waste all my time? What happened to those days where we’d spend hours watching youtube videos, taking online bootcamps, reading documentation all just to be able to develop our app or do something.

It is a scam if you are not genuinely interested and are there because of the salary.

The point is don't wait for someone to tell you to just build something. You have to do it and learn as you go along.