AI Burnout: "Do I Still Belong in Tech?" A developer's honest reckoning with the identity crisis no one wants to admit they're having Something shifted recently, and developers are finally saying it out loud. "Do I belong in tech anymore?" That question — raw, exhausted, a little desperate — hit the front page of Lobsters recently with 198 points and 63 comments. Meanwhile, Hacker News surfaced its own version: "AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it," which pulled 414 points and hundreds of replies. Two posts, same wound. This isn't imposter syndrome. It's something newer and harder to name: the quiet grief of watching a skill you spent years building become a prompt. The Old Bargain There used to be an unspoken deal in software development: learn the hard stuff, do the time, and you'd earn both a livelihood and a kind of craftsman's pride. You'd know things. You'd be good at things. The expertise was yours. That deal isn't gone — but it's wobbling.…