Maybe this is the future job

for the last 3 years, i’ve always been thinking about what skills i should invest my time in. so i tried almost everything, content creation? sure, i did video editing, graphic design, even worked for an agency based in palembang, indonesia. it got me thinking, are these future skills? because if all you do is video editing and graphic design, this job will either disappear or the competition will be bloody. you know why? ai agents. if you look at yc combinator or any vc this year, they invest heavily in ai agents. imagine ai agents for video editing, what do you think will happen?

so what skills do i need if i love working in the creative industry? i’ll write it down, and explain why ai can’t do it.

storytelling:
ai can’t do it well, because you need to be authentic. to be authentic, you need to really experience things, in other words, you need to be human. you can’t fake the connection that happens between humans and robots. when a robot tells a story, you know it’s just doing what the algorithm told it to do. it doesn’t really have a soul, and never will.

creative thinking:
“a little bit different is more good, rather than a little bit better.” for example, when you look at content on youtube, you need to be creative and a little bit different to gain attention, not just a little bit better. once you think creatively enough, you can just direct ai to do the rest.

please make content and build your community.

okay, i think that’s what i can say about the creative industry and what i’ve learned from being a video editor. after that, i tried web dev and everything in between. i did many projects, most of them failed. when i’m writing this, in 2025, i have 130+ repos, and none have made me money. i only make money by selling my web development services.

so let’s think about web dev skills, is this a future skill or not? i don’t think so, if all you do is memorize syntax and write code. i think the moat will belong to people who really understand the architecture, the theory, and who are great at designing systems. the future, i think, will belong to people who review and design robust systems as a whole, while ai writes the syntax.

people who just accept whatever ai gives them won’t survive, even if they’re faster at writing code. people who don’t use ai at all also won’t survive. the ones who will survive are those who truly understand what they’re building and review every single line of code ai gives them. why review? because by doing it, you’ll be faster at debugging and problem-solving.

humans have a bigger context when thinking in abstraction than ai. what i mean is, humans can recall things faster if it’s within a topic (like, “oh, i’ve implemented this algorithm in this code and that code”), while ai has to reread everything to understand. humans are better at thinking and designing things on an abstract level, and ai is faster at the details.

so i think this will happen across many jobs, web dev, app dev, game dev, desktop dev, and more.

and these are the skills i think people really need to dive deep into and understand, go all in, not just in theory like the previous jobs i mentioned, but actually try and implement them. so what are they? robotics, rust, and electrical engineering. for me, these are the kinds of work that are truly future-proof. you need to go all in, not only on theory and system design, but really understand them across all levels:

core human skills ->

storytelling
creative direction
leadership & team orchestration
communication & persuasion
problem framing & critical thinking
abstraction & system design
community building & personal branding
psychology & behavioral design
negotiation & strategic decision making

deep technical / system-level skills ->

robotics (mechanical + control + sensor fusion)
electrical & embedded systems engineering
rust / c++ / go (for low-level & high-performance systems)
ai/ml engineering
autonomous systems & reinforcement learning
mechatronics & industrial automation
cybersecurity & ethical hacking
cloud infrastructure / devops / sre
distributed systems design
data engineering & data architecture
api & microservices design

creative-tech fusion (where art meets ai)

game design & interactive storytelling
procedural content generation
virtual production (ue5 / blender / ai tools)
ai-assisted filmmaking & editing
ux / ui / human-computer interaction
motion design / creative coding (touchdesigner, p5.js)
digital marketing / growth hacking / funnel design
brand strategy / narrative identity design

real-world implementation & automation

edge computing & iot systems
autonomous drones & mobility tech
3d printing & manufacturing automation
energy systems / battery / solar tech
robotics integration in logistics / health / agriculture
hardware prototyping & product design
ar / vr / xr development
simulation & digital twin systems

business & scaling skills (for builders)

product management & roadmap design
startup finance & venture strategy
operations & automation
legal / intellectual property / compliance
sales engineering & technical storytelling
network building / partnership strategy

this is more of the future-proof skills i think.