So what's going on? This is a reflection on this post (of the same title) that I thoroughly enjoyed, by Flavio Copes. "I am the genuine article, therefore I don't have to try. I just have to be. You, on the other hand, have to try any passing bandwagon, because what else have you got?" Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee It seems that a great many people are feeling the pinch of a tech job market squeeze that seems to have lasted for over 2 years now. A lot of folks seem to be quick to dump the blame for this squarely on "AI". And what can you expect when the tech CEOs are all doing their stupid dance, touting the latest fadtech as the breakthrough that justifies them laying off swathes of employees in short-sighted attempts to prop up shareholder value? A more self-destructive spiral I have not seen. But the truth is masked by this conclusion. I don't believe for one second—and I don't think a lot of other popcorn-crunching devs believe it either—that "AI" is remotely close to the claims being made by these flaccid excuses for billionaires. Something else is afoot. "First, there’s a lot of people, and I mean a LOT, that went into programming and didn’t have a genuine passion for the job. For them, it’s just a way to make money." Hard agree! I've seen some of these people. I don't believe it's a bad reason to get into any line of work, but in my experience, they have made for some of the worst developers. Not because of a lack of technical capability (I truly believe almost anyone can learn to program well), but the money motivator only takes you so far. Like any job worth doing, it is hard. The rewards come to those who continue to put in the effort. If you've based your decision to become a programmer on seeing someone else claiming success on social media, I can only tell you that you've been duped. The vast majority do not have this story. And even some of the ones that appear to, don't. "Very few jobs out there give those kind of perks: high pay and comfortable life." It's all relative. My personal experience with programming hasn't been "high pay... comfortable life". I've worked damn hard for a very long time. I still don't feel sufficiently compensated and I've just had my best year ever. And that as a freelancer! I've never seen programming (or really any possible career path) as "easy". Currently "AI" makes my life a bit easier, but nothing about using it in and out every day to build things convinces me that it's going to do away with my job. "To them, those people that care about the craft, AI is not a problem at all." I totally agree. ¶So what's going on? "post-COVID companies hired like crazy" "the end of the zero-interest rate period" "increased competition" from the potential of a globally shifted workforce "investor pressure" "AI" Look, there's not just one answer. That's clear. And these are just part of the picture. I have another theory: a huge factor at play here is that, for most of these businesses, their revenue is based on ads. Therefore, consumers (for the most part) are the driving force of a lot of the top tech companies' bottom lines. But the consumers are getting sick and tired of: Privacy violations. Crypto scams. Income disparity between the workers and the C-suite. Ads! Ads! Ads! everywhere, all of the time. The lies and manipulation of it all. Many of these tech companies haven't innovated anything meaningful in a long time. They're jumping on AI right now because they're all hoping they'll discover the next big breakthrough and unlock megabucks. And in the meantime they prop themselves up by touting eye-watering sales figures (and net losses) of their next "always-on, internet connected, touchscreen, AI-powered, super agent whosawidget." Or their "giant, face-hugging, reality-distortion spectacles that no person in their right mind would be caught dead wearing in public" But are any of these "advances" really moving the needle on solving the bigger problems we're facing as a species? No. So the ads and PR BS isn't working as well as it used. If your business model is to be a big promotional platform that relies on real human beings to view the content that your advertisers want to promote, then you have to bring real value. And if you're the advertiser whose whole business model depends on crazy ad spend to penetrate into and reach your target market of what you hope are real people, then you need a lot of cheap money to get there. It's a poisoned lake. These big fish have done it to themselves. Sure, they're big, so they'll survive for a while, but it's still terminal. The good news is that, in their wake will come true innovators. I expect the next few years to be something of the beginnings of a rebirth period in this constant boom-bust circus. And I genuinely believe that "AI" will enable a lot of that. It is already enabling small teams to move faster whilst staying lean. In time, these little fish will grow and once again find opportunity in hiring fresh talent. Get in with those companies now while they're still small by seeking them out and starting a conversation. It might not be a job right away, but it's building the relationship. "You have to have a network... Local meetups, and local conferences... Go a few days before... hang out before the conference... Go to the after parties. That’s where you actually meet and get to know people." This is the way. You know, I've never once applied to FAANG. I've never felt worthy. In most cases, I don't meet the requirements as I don't have a degree. And honestly, the companies and their leaders do not align with my values at all, so I'm extremely disinclined to apply. But imagine if someone like me, a "self-taught" nobody dev, with no recognisable education, only having a connection or two, skips the queue ahead of you and lands a job at the next great innovative tech company. All for the sake of saying hello and getting to know people. This is why, especially in the age of "AI", cultivating genuine relationships with real people is so important. Work on silly side projects (if you have the capacity). Read! Share what you're working on. Share what you enjoy. Retweet. Reply. Write about it—in the abstract if you have to. Make videos. Do a podcast. Go meet new people, in and out of your field. Don't do it for the algorithm, or the likes and subscribes. Do it for the genuine relationships. Because in a world of fakes and forgeries, the genuine article sticks out like a sore thumb!

2024 has overall been a great year for me personally. I believe it represents a turning point. 2023 was tough, but 2024 went some way to redressing the balance and I am even more positive about 2025 because of it. Here are a few highlights: We went to Japan! My first time in Asia. The best trip I've been on so far. I managed to get NativePHP support for Windows released, amongst many other improvements. It's almost ready for production usage. With over 1,000 devs in the Discord, $1,000/month in sponsorships and tons of contributors helping, it really feels like it's flying. I started building ReelFlow with an old acquaintance and his business partner, and it's got some very promising signs of growth. I went to Laracon US in Dallas and it was epic! Laradir became Laradevs, blew past 4,000 registered developer profiles and has some awesome features on the way. I was interviewed by Eric from Laravel News. I started four (yes, four(!)) podcasts. I finally fixed my website so I could start publishing to it again. And to top it all off, I got invited to speak at Laracon EU 2025, which is coming up in February. But it wasn't without its challenges! Up to about March/April, I had almost zero income. I was in a rut with NativePHP because I was so stressed about finding paid work. It was really frustrating to have all these goals and intentions for NativePHP (and of course a backlog of PRs and issues to get through!) but not really having the time to focus on it. I managed to pick some up when we returned from Japan, but it wasn't quite enough, and then all of a sudden I had too much. Committing to open source in your spare time is hard at the best of times, but especially so when you've got more than a full plate of full-time client work and you're trying grow a SaaS (Laradevs) on the side... I can tell you now, I have (and still continue) to make poor decisions about the best use of my time, for which I can only say that I'm very grateful to and for my long-suffering wife. Bu, I'm sorry that I've not spent enough time with you. Honestly, I feel like I've been teetering on the edge of burnout. So I decided that I needed to drop one client and that freed up my time. Thankfully, we managed to get away for a week later in the year. It was just to Tenerife, our neighbouring island, and we went up into the hills, so despite being the tail end of summer (when you'd expect great weather and warm temperatures), we were cold and damp in amongst the clouds. But it was just what I needed. We chilled out, cooked food, sampled the local shops, bars and restaurants, spent good time with great friends and just really relaxed. What's more, I felt like I truly disconnected for once (even though my wife might disagree!) So I'm determined to do more of that in 2025. Saying that, January is going to be tough! I've got a talk to finish so that I can go on stage in front of the biggest audience I've ever spoken in front of, to talk about something that I feel like I have almost zero knowledge about. A lot of the past couple of years - of basically being forced to go back into freelancing during the height of a hiring crisis - has felt like when I tried to start a business back in 2008/9, at the peak of the recession: hard work and I'm way out of my depth. Although many things have changed over those years, the one factor that's really stood out as being different is me. I can see clearly how I've grown in so many ways. I feel like I'm doing some of the best work of my career and I'm enjoying it a lot. The other thing I've learned is that I want to go all-in on NativePHP. In my opinion, the potential for this tech is huge. I'm not under any illusion that this is going to happen quickly. So one of my goals for 2025 is to build up one of those side projects enough to give me more time to spend on NativePHP, a stepping stone on my way to making it my full-time focus. It might be Laradevs, it might be something else. I don't know for sure yet, but I'm putting my chips on a few numbers. Besides that, I'm looking forward to visiting Amsterdam for the first time. I'm cautiously optimistic about my talk (though I'm starting to get very nervous) and I'm hoping to be able to attend Laracon US again. I've also got a couple more personal challenge goals. I'm 40 in 2025, so: I want to get my body into shape - I have a little excess weight to lose and while I'm probably the fittest I've been since the pandemic, I am still not fit enough. I want to build 40 apps with NativePHP! I want to meet (virtually or IRL) 1,000 Laravel developers I've not met before. 2024 has been a year of finding clarity and focus. 2025 will be the year of doubling down and building bigger. I hope you've had an opportunity to reflect and find some positives about 2024. I know it has been especially hard for many of you. I also hope that you can find a way to look into 2025 with enthusiasm and energy. I'd love to hear more about your ups and downs and what you're excited about for 2025, so please feel free to reach out to me

Avoid the shiny Avoid comparison Some examples Laravel Build tools Typescript and JS frameworks The Web Platform What I keep up with This morning, I watched a video advertising a course aimed at developers. One of the first sentiments proclaimed is that of feeling left behind, that tech is moving too fast to keep up. I think we're probably one of only a few industries globally that have this problem. I don't see baristas learning how to use every kind of coffee machine, or carpenters buying and using all the different types of wood saw. I don't see how they could. I'm sure those industries don't move anywhere near as fast as tech, so it may be a bit of an unfair comparison, but that has led me to a really interesting axiom: After 20 years in tech, I've learned that slow tech is good tech. I'm happier when I'm not trying to be on the bleeding edge. ¶Avoid the shiny I realised over time that I have been quite a lot more dismissive of "the new shiny" than a lot of other devs. In the back of my mind I was always kinda worried that I was being left behind because I wasn't learning X or getting experience with Y. But I've learned over the years that it truly doesn't matter. Why? Most importantly: users won't notice. Second: many companies don't have the capacity or desire to be on the bleeding edge. Finally: my brain still works, I can learn new things any time, when I really need to. And I learn faster now anyway. ¶Avoid comparison It's led me to believe that "falling behind" is a made-up concept designed to sell you stuff you probably don't need. 🌶️ Or maybe it's just human nature, similar to "keeping up with the Jones's". We're competitive, we compare ourselves to others very quickly. It's a bad habit though. I'm here to tell you that it's not just ok to fall (a little bit) behind, it can even be A Good Thing™. I've been falling behind for my entire career. 😂 I'm probably more behind now than I've ever been. But I'm also doing better now - in many ways - than I ever have. ¶Some examples ¶Laravel I didn't use Laravel until a couple years after its first release. When I picked up v4.2 it was using Composer and had started the transition to Symfony components. It had DI and all sorts of other goodies that earlier versions lacked. ¶Build tools I never used Bower/Gulp/Grunt/Yarn; I settled on NPM after the war was over. I haven't switched to Bun (and probably won't). I barely touched Webpack thanks to Laravel Mix. I use Vite, but also hardly use it directly, thanks to Laravel's first-party Vite plugin. I waited so long on all of this stuff that when I actually needed it, the choices were easy. Sure, I wasn't there at the front lines; I didn't invent React. I didn't build Vite. I didn't write the Laravel plugin. But then, I didn't need to, I wasn't building the frontend to the biggest online social network ever or a toolchain for other developers. ¶Typescript and JS frameworks I looked at Typescript once. You can just write plain JavaScript and get the same results. I slept on Coffeescript, Backbone, Angular, React, Vue, Svelte etc. Though I've used some of them briefly during my time, I never went deep on any of them. I stuck with jQuery for a long time because it worked and I knew how to build things rapidly with it. Importantly, I know the value of these other tools and when to use them. That hasn't stopped me being able to work on teams that use them heavily. But I've learned that it probably won't need to be me that's the person who's working day-in, day-out with them. And I'm ok with that. I use Alpine and Livewire now, as they were built to work with the tools I know and love using, each with a small footprint and easy to learn. They're more than enough for my needs—and many of my clients! And you know what? Some of my clients still use jQuery. 🤷‍♂️ ¶The Web Platform I love seeing the latest features in HTML, CSS & JS. I'll play with them, but very rarely deploy them. It usually takes some time before new features are available on ALL browsers and devices. And even then, billions of potential users are still running older versions. Yes, it still tickles my curiosity learning new things. It's intellectually satisfying. And, yes, proficiency in multiple tools can make you a more valuable asset. 💰 I'm not saying "you should not...", I'm just saying "you don't need to". ¶What I keep up with The only things that have been really important for me to stay up to date on are the core technologies I use: PHP & Laravel. I make it a point to keep my apps up to date with close to the latest releases - mainly for security and performance reasons, but also so I can use the latest and greatest features. 😛 But I rarely upgrade apps in production to the very latest versions as soon as they're available... I always leave it a few weeks. In that way, my work is not dictated by someone else's release schedule! That's not to say I don't keep abreast of what's coming in future releases of those tools; they're core to the service I provide and the tools I build, so I would be remiss not to. Being aware of what's coming is the priority there. But I don't have to have hands-on experience with everything. Testing early ("beta") releases against existing code is a useful exercise from time to time, but not always required. So basically I only need to regularly monitor two technologies. Easily done with a reasonably well-curated Twitter or a couple of RSS feeds. Sure, I keep my finger on the pulse of all the other tech I use, glancing occasionally out the corner of my eye and paying attention when the sources I am more focused on mention them But by keeping it simple, I can focus on delivering the most value rather than spinning my wheels on all of the superfluous things adjacent to the. Everything else can wait. Don't try to learn and keep up to date with everything; pick your battles!

Job hunting Freelancing Side Projects NativePHP Spred Veliance & Laradir Streaming Personal Things This year has been quite a ride! 🎢 It's felt like the first real year since 2020 that things have been somewhat "normal". However, looking back, it's been anything but normal. ¶Job hunting Although I finished my job at Elvie back at the beginning of November 2022, I allowed myself a couple of months off before fully getting into recruitment mode. I did a lot of interviews and general job-hunting busy-work at the beginning of 2023. For all my efforts, I had only one job offer come out of it, despite getting to final stage interviews on quite a few exciting roles. Sadly that offer would have forced us to move back to the UK, which wasn't something I was ready to do. We will move back at some point, but I had hoped to make more of a 'success' of living in another country and not throw in the towel at the first sign of rocky terrain. However, after pouring so much time and energy into job-hunting and really feeling like I wasn't getting anywhere (and steadily coming to the end of our savings), it was time to look for other sources of income. This meant switching from the comfort of a regular salary to freelancing... ¶Freelancing Freelancing work picked up and was going well for most of the summer. I was able to go to Laracon US (although the journey there was an experience) and enjoy a few days of nerding out with a bunch of old and new friends in the Laravel community, which was awesome. I went straight from there to Sicily for a holiday with my wife and some friends. Although we had more travel troubles thanks to the ridiculous Mediterranean heatwave that occurred, and we were at one point legitimately concerned about our well-being due to wildfires, it was a welcome break. But despite paying well, freelancing isn't my dream. I've spent too long in my career doing this kind of work, and when I joined Elvie back in 2017 it was a dream-come-true to move away from endless projects and to focus on refining systems over the long-haul. I have always enjoyed a few aspects of working with clients: learning their business and their problems, solving new and interesting challenges, and meeting new people. But I find the lack of control or influence frustrating. Moving back to freelancing, I feel like I've let go of my dream and hastily picked up client work again... something I'd wanted to escape for so long. However, it has allowed me to work with some incredible teams. Most notably I've enjoyed working with Spruce, Manual and more recently Tighten. One good thing from freelancing is that it has afforded me some extra freedom, allowing me to explore some of my side projects. ¶Side Projects Aside of the hundreds of hours I spent interviewing, sucking at Rocket League and not really getting any better at guitar, my time out of work also gave me the headspace to think about some side projects that I'd wanted to explore for a while. ¶NativePHP One idea was to create completely distributable Laravel apps by bundling PHP within Tauri. After a bit of banging my head against the wall, I finally nailed it, thanks largely to the static-php-cli package, which seemed to have gone somewhat unnoticed and in need of a lot of love. But Jerry, the maintainer, was super helpful and back in March I was able to get a statically-compiled version of PHP up and running with enough of the needed extensions baked-in to run a Laravel app. Then I tweeted about it and things went a little crazy. Marcel Pociot from BeyondCode reached out to me and NativePHP was born. (Although I wasn't involved with its development, Laravel Herd also came out of this and I was using it for about a month before it was released at Laracon US) We launched NativePHP publicly at Laracon US—Marcel changed the topic of his talk specifically to focus on NativePHP, which was super cool. He repeated the talk at Laracon AU. The interest in NativePHP has blown me away honestly, but it's also been somewhat frustrating. While I'd love to focus all my attention on it, I can't because I have a family and we need to eat etc. This has really brought the stark reality of open source home for me, where hundreds and thousands of people want something, but only a tiny, tiny proportion of them are prepared to put their money towards it. I get that it's a bit of a Catch-22 situation: if it's not production-ready, it's hard to justify contributing towards it because you likely can't make any money from it yet. Unfortunately, that has meant it's had to take a back seat while I go and do paid work or build up other projects that can generate some income for me. ¶Spred Another idea I'd be knocking around for a while was a payment solution that did away with using debit/credit cards altogether. My previous boss and mentor got me onto the idea and I was keen to explore it. Spred came out of that and it's been a bit of a vehicle for me to explore building something in public. While the idea is solid, I haven't yet figured out why it doesn't have wide appeal. Fee-free payments seems like a huge deal, but I'm struggling to find businesses that are prepared to try it out. I've only had a handful of payments run through the service so far. ¶Veliance & Laradir I started Veliance because I was freelancing and wanted to build up a directory of other Laravel freelancers. Having gone from being part of a team of people that I thoroughly enjoyed working with to suddenly being 'on my own' was a little daunting. Having some like-minded individuals that I could tap into felt appropriate. It wasn't an app, it was just a Notion page hooked up with a Typeform or two. A lot of it was manual and I didn't expect it to explode or anything—we're talking about a niche within a niche here—so the workload was never going to be intense. While I was spreading the message about Veliance, someone pointed out Laradir. It looked like they'd had a similar idea and had already started to build out an app. I reached out to them to see if we could collab... 🦗 🏏 I watched the site over the months—the number of registered user accounts kept climbing steadily and I thought they must be onto something. They had an 'open metrics' page, so I was able to see the signups going up, but revenue wasn't really moving (maybe the cron job broke?) And then, out of the blue, they got back to me. We chatted and I learned that the team behind it had kind of moved onto other things and didn't have the budget to carry it further. The opportunity to acquire the site came up and so I made an offer. And they accepted! This is the first time I've acquired a website or app. I couldn't be happier with how this went and I'm excited to do it again. It all went super smoothly and now I'm running Laradir. And I'm super excited to keep on developing that platform to help even more Laravel developers find work. Where Veliance was focused solely on Laravel freelancers, Laradir is for all Laravel engineers. I only managed to get about 70 devs signed up to Veliance, but Laradir already had over 700 when I acquired it. Since then it's grown to almost 2,000 (1,988 as of today)! These aren't huge numbers, but it's a start. I think there are plenty more to come. If you haven't joined yet, please do! ¶Streaming Something I've been wanting to do for a while is live-stream programming. I wasn't able to do it at Elvie because it just wasn't ever going to be that kind of org. But now that I'm a free agent, I wanted to give it a meaningful shot. I'm not a showman. I just enjoy writing code. I'd love it if it helps someone, but honestly, I largely expect that someone to only be me. That said, I had a few goals: Create some accountability to help me focus and get things done. Do it regularly and meaningfully, even if no one is watching. Keep the overall commitment low. See if it's something I enjoy doing. I think it's passed on all counts: It has given me a reason to build different side projects in public, which is nerve-wracking and exciting. I've limited it to just Fridays for now. And I find that around 2 hours is enough time. But I'm trying to keep it a regular slot every week. I haven't gone out and bought any new gear to do it—I use my iPhone camera (Continuity Camera) and I bought a Røde lavalier. I haven't decked out my office or installed soundproofing or bought an expensive mic. And I am really enjoying it! It's honestly quite tiring, but it's worth it. I think every stream I've done has been better the previous one, both in my comfort level doing the stream but also in what I'm able to work on and the progress we make together. And somehow I've got 127 subscribers on my channel, which I honestly never believed would happen! Thanks to everyone who's been on the show, said hi and subscribed. I really appreciate your support 💜 ¶Personal Things I'm proud of many of the things I've done this year. But it's also been quite hard. That takes a toll. I've felt quite tired and frustrated by a lot of things—more than normal. I consider myself to be quite patient, but I feel like that's wearing thinner... I'm becoming a bit of a 'grumpy old man' and honestly I have to have a strong word with myself every now and then. I am extremely fortunate all things considered: I have a beautiful and caring wife, a sometimes-obedient pup, and a modest set of relative luxuries... a nice home, a car, eating out, the occasional holiday etc. My wife has worked insanely hard on her business too. It's been a really tough year for her. And even in the last couple of months, we've had some pretty big ups followed by some equally low downs. All this combined has had us talking more and more seriously about a move back to London. Although life after the pandemic (is it ever really over?) seems to be returning to something like what it was prior, there's still quite a deep unsettling feeling that I don't think I've had before. I feel like I used to have a pretty good idea of what the next year would bring, but I honestly have no clue for 2024. I do feel a bit more positive about the year ahead than I did at this time last year, but the levels of uncertainty are still quite high. The best I can do is stake a claim on trying to achieve a few goals: Drastically improve my Spanish! Grow Laradir so that it becomes self-sustaining. Launch Spred so that anyone can sign up and start using it. Continue streaming and enjoying it. Get NativePHP out of alpha and into production—especially the Tauri driver. A stretch goal might be that all of the above do enough to financially support us that I can scale back freelancing. For sure there will be some unexpected curveballs to throw some of this off track. Hopefully they're good surprises and not bad surprises 🤷🏻‍♂️