So i'm a senior software engineer with almost 9 years of experience, mostly backend stuff, a lot of AWS, serverless, Node.js and JavaScript in general. Lately i've been watching how fast everyone is adopting AI and honestly it's making me less interested in this field, or at least less sure about where it's going, and i don't want to just sit around waiting to see if i end up on a layoff list.

What i really want is a backup plan, something i can lean on if things go sideways, and DevOps or platform engineering feels like a natural step since i already live in AWS and deal with infra day to day, but i don't really know what the day to day is like or how it compares to backend work.

For those of you who moved into DevOps from backend, what did the transition look like, what did you have to learn that you didn't expect, and what would you focus on now so i'm not the one who gets cut? Any honest takes appreciated.