Hi, I'm Cesar, a Senior Software Engineer with 10+ years of experience.
In 2023, I got sick and burned out.
In 2024, I was laid off and even rejected from FAANG.
I used the time between jobs as a mini-sabbatical to recover.
Writing became part of my therapy, and dev.to was a big part of the journey.
Hitting the Top7 and encouraging comments pushed me to keep writing.
Since then, I've been turning my lessons into posts and books.
My goal is to complete a trilogy before I retire (hopefully before I'm 60).
I already published the second one, Street-Smart Coding, and I'm working on a prequel.
This week, I'm celebrating my 7-year anniversary on dev.to.
Ask me anything about coding, burnout, or writing.
I don't have all answers, tho.
Or simply stop by to say Hi.
UPDATE (July 24th): I'm officially closing this AMA. I had a great time answering your questions. I think I tried to answer all of them, or at least most of them...For some moments, it felt I was talking to bots. Most likely true, if you also believe in the dead internet theory. Next week, I'm sharing a summary of my favorite questions.
Top comments (105)
Hey Cesar! Hope you are well and congrats on the 7 year anniversary on dev.to!
Mostly stopping by and saying Hi :D
Though, I am wondering about the last 7 years at DEV. What changed in your perspective and what makes a Senior Software Engineer...Senior? Thanks :D
For me, there's one true sign of being Senior: when you stop optimizing/refactoring/cleaning/perfecting because you know when a solution is good enough.
Thanks for stopping by!
Hey Cesar! Hope you feel better now. 7 years here? Wow! Ill celebrate my first year on dev.to next month!
Hi Pascal. Yes, 7 years with different levels of participation and engagement. Congrats on your first year!
Hi, Cesar! 👋🏻 Congrats on your 7th anniversary on DEV! I've been here for over 3 months already, and I love this place! 💛
I hope you've already gotten over the burnout. If yes, any tips on how to get out of it?
Here's what I did:
I was a long process on the way down...and a longer one on the way up. If I could summarize into one line: taking care of my health (by doing something for my mind, body, and spirit every day) and bringing a sense of joy/fulfillment to my life every day (I went back to some of my hobbies just for fun)
Interesting, I subconsciously started doing this too. Started painting and writing, also spending less time in front of the computer, taking care of proper breaks during work... seems the body knows exactly what it needs; we just need to give it some space.
Thank you for replying, wish you all the best! 🌻
Hope you find your way out.
burnout is so real, 2nd half of 2025 taught me a good lesson on that.
just one question: do you like the engineering 10yrs ago or right now with AI stuff - and why!
Sorry to hear you had to go thru it. Hope you're doing good.
The old days. Everything was new to me and the journey itself was so exciting...
Year 2025 onwards, the programmers are literally coding as prompt monkey 😂
Thank you for sharing this, César. It takes real courage to lay out both the highlights and the hard parts of a 10-year journey. Wishing you strength as you rebuild — and I hope you find work that truly values the person behind the code.
With your 10 years of experience, I’m curious: what’s your take on the Machine-to-Machine (M2M) economy and Cloudflare’s ultimatum to Google? Starting September 15, 2026, the default will be to block mixed-use crawlers like Googlebot. Do you see this as a pivotal moment that forces the search and training bots to split? Does it change how you think about the value of web content in the agent era? Would love to hear your perspective.
This is a discussion worth having. But I don't have a strong/solid opinion at the moment. It's true that we fed the bots and now they're charging it for access. Kind of weird, isn't it?
Yes! There's no more value in how-to tutorials when there's a magical text area and a button that figure out what we want. If we want to stand out, we have to give what AI can't.
That's exactly the paradox, isn't it? We spent years feeding the machine with our content, and now the machine wants to charge us to access what we created.
But you're right — the real value shifts to what AI can't generate: proprietary data, real-time on-chain intelligence, and machine-readable APIs. That's why I shifted AgentShare from human-facing price data to DeFi intelligence for agents. The market will pay for data it can't synthesize itself.
What kind of 'AI-proof' value are you thinking about building?
At the moment, I'm working on a book trilogy to share everything I've learned and I wish someone had told me.
That's a beautiful project — a book trilogy is the kind of work that outlasts any API or framework.
I think the most valuable thing you can share is the story behind the lessons: the failures, the pivots, and the moments you almost gave up. AI can generate a tutorial, but it can't generate lived experience.
Wishing you clarity and flow with the writing. If you ever want to discuss the intersection of storytelling and AI, I'd be happy to exchange notes.
Hi Cesar, congrats on 7 years here and on the trilogy!
I'm a developer and technical writer, currently studying toward becoming a system architect. I recently won the Google I/O 2026 Writing Challenge and hold DEV's React Top Author badge, but growth still feels harder coming from a market with limited local opportunities, and being a woman in tech adds another layer.
How did you approach going after opportunities that felt out of reach after your layoff? Any advice for developers trying to break into global roles from a market with limited access?
I've relied on software agencies, but of course your mileage may vary.
Take a look at this conversation (and the summary) I joined the other day with ALX community:
15 Takeaways From "Breaking in the Mindset That Gets You Hired" With ALX Community
Thank you for writing this so openly — the part about not tying your identity solely to your career really landed with me.
I'm in a similar chapter, just earlier in the climb out. I was laid off, and most of my experience is deep in one stack — PHP, many years. I'm finding it hard to land roles in the same tech, and I'm unsure which way to move: go deeper, branch to something adjacent, or pivot entirely.
What struck me was your take that AI isn't a direct threat and that much of the fear is manufactured. I want to believe that — but from where I sit (one stack, tight market), it's hard not to feel the ground shifting.
So my question: for someone specialized in a single stack and rebuilding right now, how would you think about where to invest the next couple of years? And what helped you separate real signal from the fear when you chose your own next step?
Wishing you the best on the trilogy. 🙏
Figuring this out myself too...The first answer that comes to mind is be a big fish in a small pond...and definitely see how to incorporate AI tools to assist your processes.
The fear is still there. I just build an insurance policy by freelancing on the side. So worst case scenario I have my basic expenses covered.
Thanks, Cesar. Honestly the part that stuck with me was you saying you're still figuring it out too, and that the fear doesn't really go away. I've been feeling behind because I don't have it sorted — good to know that's kind of just the deal.
The small-pond point makes sense. I've been trying to be okay at everything and it's exhausting. Probably smarter to go deep where my PHP years actually count for something.
The freelancing safety net is the real one for me though. Hard to think straight when you're worried about the basics. I think I need to fix that part first.
Appreciate you actually taking the time to reply properly. Good luck with the books.
We're all figuring this thing called life as we go :)
Hello, Cesar!
I hope you're doing well!
I'm certainly not as experienced as you and I don't know if you can answer my questions — I'll understand.
If you had to choose for someone between Computer Science and Software Engineering, what would you choose and why?
What tip would Cesar give me to create a habit and be consistent with my codes?
Thank u!
Hard to choose. I've always struggled choosing majors. Both paths are interesting. CS is more theoretical (I think there's still 1M waiting for someone to solve an open problem) and SWE is way more hands-on/practical.
There's no shortcuts or secrets: Find a challenge and do something small to finish it every day....That's what I do to finish my books.
Not a question — just recognition. I sit on the opposite side of your table: I'm a physical therapist by trade, and burnout recovery is literally the work I do with patients. Reading "in 2023 I got sick and burned out, in 2024 I was laid off" from inside a career, instead of across a clinic desk, landed differently.
One thing I tell people in recovery that your post already lives out: the goal isn't to get back to who you were before it broke — it's to rebuild into someone the same thing can't break the same way twice. You didn't sprint back into a job, you turned the wreckage into a book, and then a trilogy. That's not just healing; that's redesigning the load so it stops landing on the same joint.
The dev.to part is real, too. I found this place late and used it the same way — writing here became somewhere to think out loud and get told the thinking wasn't crazy. If a question helps: what's the one habit from before the burnout that you've deliberately refused to carry into the rebuild? Rooting for all three books.
I only code for work..and I've learned to diversify my sources of joy. Before, my career was probably one of the most important parts of my life. And when I lost that with a layoff, it took away my sense of joy and accomplishment with it.
That lands, and it quietly finishes the metaphor from my first comment. Putting all your joy into one joint means that when the joint goes, everything it was carrying goes with it — you didn't just lose a job, you lost the only thing the weight was resting on. Diversifying the sources of joy is the same move as spreading a load: not because any one source is weak, but because a single point of failure shouldn't be able to take the whole system down with it.
In my work I see it constantly — the people who recover best aren't the strongest, they're the ones whose life doesn't route entirely through one thing. You rebuilt the load-bearing structure, not just the muscle. "I only code for work" might read as smaller to someone else; from here it reads as someone who found out where the weight actually belongs. Genuinely glad you came out the other side pointing at it. The trilogy's lucky to have that behind it.
Great analogy! Hope you don't mind if I use it somewhere else :)
Hello Cesar. How's it going?
If you don't mind me asking, have you ever experienced imposter syndrome? If so, How did you overcome it?
It's been about 3 years since I started working as a developer, but I feel like I am still not good enough, especially compared to other comrades. I am not sure whether it's imposters syndrome or not and how to get out of this feeling.
All the time. Find a challenge that stretches you enough out of your comfort zone to prove yourself wrong.
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