How to find AI-conservative companies to work for?
Is it even possible?
I don't completely hate AI, and leverage it to make things better but I don't like to use it for EVERYTHING.
At my current job we have outsourced our thinking, our design, our documentation, our sanity to it and I just can't do it anymore.
I'm considering getting out of tech entirely at this point I've been in it for almost two decades and I've reached my tipping point dealing with the way we're using it but fear basically every company hiring software engineers is doing the same thing (or worse.)
I'm ready to just be poorer at this point.
Based on your message, I assume you are and want to stay in software engineering.
Having worked in regulated and very sensitive industries (banking and semiconductor), I can tell you adoption is slower but AI is still everywhere. Because those industries have many constraints, they have to think hard how to adopt it. So, you will encounter AI initiatives everywhere.
If you want to be part of those adoption initiatives but just want more thoughtful and slower adoption, such industries might be a good fit. If you want to avoid AI initiatives in general, I am not sure whether software engineering is the right function.
Try companies in highly regulated industries with intense compliance requirements or where lives are at stake. They’re not universally AI-conservative, but they have more reason to be than your average productivity app SaaS.
Sadly the ones conservative on AI tend to also be conservative on things like WFH or honoring the hacker manifesto. (Judging based on religion, national origin etc)
And where do we go from here? Law? Medicine? The trades?! Every path seems longer and/or more precarious, but I feel like I've had the same uncertainty as my friends who were writers and artists despite losing many a night (and many a partner) because I worked longer hours but ended up in the same precarious place as my peers.
I actually think the vast majority of companies outside of the main tech hubs are still AI conservative.