There is a thought that keeps crossing my mind as I work as a developer.
I don't think I am the type of person people usually call a "great developer."
Don't get me wrong - That does not mean I think improving my development skills is unimportant. It just means that becoming a great developer itself is not my final goal.
To be honest, even when I first got into programming, I never once aimed to become some kind of "legendary developer."
Studying algorithms, pushing optimization to the limit, or trying to reduce server response time by even 0.1 seconds has never been something that strongly interests me.
But that does not mean I started programming simply because it pays well.
Development is definitely fun. I like the experience of creating something with my own hands.
Although the rapid rise of AI has reduced the amount of time I spend writing code directly, that experience has not disappeared. I am still the one giving AI the ideas and goals, and deciding the direction it should take.
Still, I am not living as a developer just because it is fun.
The biggest reason I continue to work as a developer is because I see development not as a goal, but as a tool.
My goal in life is ambitious, but at the same time, not that ambitious.
I want to live a quiet and relaxed life in a peaceful home without commuting.
In other words, I want financial freedom.
And I see development as one of the tools that can help me reach that goal.
Naturally, achieving financial freedom requires a lot of money.
Then how can I make that much money?
If I am lucky, maybe I could achieve it through investing, winning the lottery, or something similar. But fundamentally, I believe that in order to make a lot of money, I need to provide "value" to people.
And I think that value often comes from solving problems that people have.
If I want to solve people's problems, I need to carefully observe those problems and provide solutions for them.
Development is simply the tool I chose to create those solutions.
I believe software is one of the easiest ways to provide value beyond geographical and time constraints.
That is why I enjoy thinking more about what I can build and what problems I can solve with it than about development itself.
Unfortunately, I still have not created something on my own, discovered a real problem, and validated a product by seeing whether people actually wanted it.
But I believe that by making many small attempts and learning from them, I will gradually understand what kind of value people actually want.
So today, once again, I open my IDE and Codex.