Recently, I read an internal email from the CEO of Fiverr to all of their employees. It wasn’t your typical executive memo—it was raw, brutally honest, and frankly, a wake-up call.
The message?
AI is coming for your software developer job.
As someone who works closely with developers and tech professionals, that line hit hard—but it also felt accurate.
We’re not waiting for disruption. We’re living in it.
If you’re still working like it’s 2024, you’re already falling behind.
What the Message Really Means for Developers
Let’s cut to the chase. Here’s what that email implies for us—people who write code, solve problems, and build things:
1. Your Old Edge Is Diminishing
That clean code, that neat bug fix, that reliable delivery—you’re proud of it. But guess what? AI can do it too. Faster, cheaper, and at scale.
2. Mastering AI Is the New Baseline
GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude—if you’re not using tools like these to accelerate your work, you’re not keeping up. This isn’t about “cool experiments.” It’s about core skills.
3. Prompt Engineering Is the New Literacy
Knowing how to talk to AI is now part of being technically fluent. Prompting well is becoming just as important as writing good functions or designing clean APIs.
4. It’s All About Speed and Value
Forget measuring effort by hours. The question now is:
What did you ship? How fast? What value did it create?
That’s the new scoreboard.
5. Reinvention Is the Job
The skill you mastered last year? Might be commoditized tomorrow. Reinvention is no longer optional—it’s part of the job description now.
So, Are We Doomed?
No. Not if we’re willing to wake up.
In fact, for those who lean in, this moment is a massive opportunity. It’s a chance to build superpowers, not just skills. And if you’re willing to rethink how you work, how you learn, and how you deliver—you won’t just stay relevant. You’ll become indispensable.
What You Can Do Today
Try AI tools in your workflow. Don’t just read about them—use them.
Ask your smartest peers how they’re adapting. Learn from the ones ahead of the curve.
Timebox learning. Block out regular time to play, test, and explore.
Think beyond code. Can you optimize a process? Improve team efficiency? Automate tasks others avoid?
Act like it’s already 2025. Because in many ways, it already is.
This shift isn’t pretty. It’s not comfortable.
But if we face it head-on, it’ll be one of the most valuable transformations of our careers.
The original email text is reproduced below
Hey team,
I’ve always believed in radical candor and despise those who sugar-coat reality to avoid stating the unpleasant truth. The very basis for radical candor is care. You care enough about your friends and colleagues to tell them the truth because you want them to be able to understand it, grow, and succeed.
So here is the unpleasant truth: AI is coming for your jobs. Heck, it’s coming for my job too. This is a wake-up call.
It does not matter if you are a programmer, designer, product manager, data scientist, lawyer, customer support rep, salesperson, or a finance person – AI is coming for you.
You must understand that what was once considered ‘easy tasks’ will no longer exist; what was considered ‘hard tasks’ will be the new easy, and what was considered ‘impossible tasks’ will be the new hard. If you do not become an exceptional talent at what you do, a master, you will face the need for a career change in a matter of months. I am not trying to scare you. I am not talking about your job at Fiverr. I am talking about your ability to stay in your profession in the industry.
Are we all doomed? Not all of us, but those who will not wake up and understand the new reality fast, are, unfortunately, doomed.
What can we do? First of all, take a moment and let this sink in. Drink a glass of water. Scream hard in front of the mirror if it helps you. Now relax. Panic hasn’t solved problems for anyone. Let’s talk about what would help you become an exceptional talent in your field:
Study, research, and master the latest AI solutions in your field. Try multiple solutions and figure out what gives you superpowers. By superpowers, I mean the ability to generate more outcomes per unit of time with better quality per delivery.
Programmers: code (Cursor…)
Customer support: tickets (Intercom Fin, SentiSum…)
Lawyers: contracts (Lexis+ AI, Legora…)
Etc.
Find the most knowledgeable people on our team who can help you become more familiar with the latest and greatest in AI.
Time is the most valuable asset we have — if you’re working like it’s 2024, you’re doing it wrong! You are expected and needed to do more, faster, and more efficiently now.
Become a prompt engineer. Google is dead. LLM and GenAI are the new basics, and if you’re not using them as experts, your value will decrease before you know what hit you.
Get involved in making the organization more efficient using AI tools and technologies. It does not make sense to hire more people before we learn how to do more with what we have.
Understand the company strategy well and contribute to helping it achieve its goals. Don’t wait to be invited to a meeting where we ask each participant for ideas – there will be no such meeting. Instead, pitch your ideas proactively.
Stop waiting for the world or your place of work to hand you opportunities to learn and grow — create those opportunities yourself. I vow to help anyone who wants to help themselves.
If you don’t like what I wrote; if you think I’m full of shit, or just an asshole who’s trying to scare you – be my guest and disregard this message. I love all of you and wish you nothing but good things, but I honestly don’t think that a promising professional future awaits you if you disregard reality.
If, on the other hand, you understand deep inside that I’m right and want all of us to be on the winning side of history, join me in a conversation about where we go from here as a company and as individual professionals. We have a magnificent company and a bright future ahead of us. We just need to wake up and understand that it won’t be pretty or easy. It will be hard and demanding, but damn well worth it.
This message is food for thought. I have asked Shelly to free up time on my calendar in the next few weeks so that those of you who wish to sit with me and discuss our future can do so. I look forward to seeing you.
Yours,
Micha
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