Serguey Asael Shinder – IT Professional

I used to compete on answers.

Knowing the syntax. Remembering the API.
Being the person who could produce the thing, fast.

Then the tools got good at exactly that,
and I watched my edge quietly evaporate.

For a while it scared me.
If the machine can answer anything,
what’s left for me to be good at?

The answer came from watching what the tools couldn’t do.

They’d answer anything I asked —
brilliantly, tirelessly, instantly.
But they had no idea what was worth asking.
Point them at the wrong problem
and they’d solve it beautifully,
and the beautiful solution would be useless.

That’s when it clicked.

When answers get cheap,
the value moves to the question.
To framing the problem
so the answer is worth having.
To knowing the domain, the people, the stakes —
the messy context the model can’t see.

So I stopped trying to be the fastest answerer.

I started getting better at framing.
Understanding what actually mattered
before I automated the answering of it.

That’s the skill I’m betting on now,
because it’s the one the tools make more valuable,
not less.

The answer became a commodity.
The question became the craft.

I aimed my career at the question,
and it kept paying off.

– Serguey Asael Shinder