What I learned from a senior developer’s phone call

Before my informational interview, I looked up the company my contact works for and what it’s building. I didn’t look him up personally, so my questions were about the industry instead of his career. I wanted to ask whether handwritten code will disappear soon and, since his company works in cybersecurity, how AI affects security.

I didn’t go in with strong assumptions. Two points stuck with me. Technology changes almost daily, and he thinks handwritten code will vanish in the near future. He also said it takes lots of applications before an offer letter shows up, and his advice was to keep applying. Hearing that from someone senior made the slow job search feel less personal.

The call lasted 27 minutes. I was nervous at first and relaxed once we got going. At one point we talked about the upcoming Diwali festival and the pollution in Delhi NCR, which had nothing to do with my questions, and that’s when it started to feel like a real conversation.

Online, I can read plenty of opinions about AI replacing programmers, but I can ask follow up questions but author might not reply and the conversation is slow. On the phone I could ask a question, hear how he thought about it, and adjust my next one. His answers came from his own work, so I weighed them differently than a post from a stranger.