The Day I Realized My Role Was Being Eliminated

The Day I Realized My Role Was Being Eliminated

In 2023, I sat in a Salesforce Einstein Copliot demo — what’s now evolving into AgentForce.

The product was still in its infancy. But the moment it clicked, everything else went quiet.

My vision got clear: my role was being eliminated.

Developers would be impacted too.
Teams of five would shrink to one — maybe two.

That wasn’t fear talking.
That was pattern recognition.

So I asked myself the only question that mattered:

Do I resist this… or do I learn it?

I pivoted. Fast.

What that actually meant wasn’t courses or certifications.

I built tools.

Custom GPTs for my specific needs:

This was before AI was mainstream.
ChatGPT was new.
Most people were still figuring out what a “prompt” even was.

I wasn’t experimenting.
I was building systems.

The layoff came in May 2024.

I wasn’t surprised.
But I was ready.

The job market was brutal. Everyone was competing for fewer roles using the same playbook:

I had something different.

My job search assistant scanned multiple sources — job boards, company career pages, anywhere roles were posted.

It filtered for my criteria:

But here’s what actually mattered:

It surfaced company names and role titles, and I went direct to their career sites to apply.

Smaller applicant pools.
Better routing.
Same roles — different odds.

While everyone else was joining the 500-person pile on LinkedIn, I was applying through channels that actually got seen.

The recruiter question always came:

“How did you hear about this role?”

I couldn’t explain.

AI wasn’t mainstream yet. Saying “I built a custom GPT that scans job boards” would’ve sounded like I was gaming the system.

So I gave them something generic about monitoring the market closely.

What I didn’t say:
I had a system working while others were manually scrolling.

That wasn’t luck.
That was structure.

The real insight wasn’t the AI tool itself.

It was the strategic thinking wrapped around it.

This is Listen → Review → Architect in action:

LISTEN
My real bottleneck wasn’t “I need a job.”
It was: I need to identify relevant roles faster than everyone else and position myself better when I apply.

REVIEW
Most people were manually scrolling LinkedIn, hitting Easy Apply, and competing with 500 applicants in a black hole.

ARCHITECT
I built a system that scanned multiple sources, filtered for my criteria, and routed me to direct applications where I’d actually be seen.

Here’s what most people get wrong:

They learn AI — and do nothing with it.

Or they use AI the same way everyone else does: asking ChatGPT to rewrite their resume for the hundredth time.

The advantage doesn’t come from using the tool.
It comes from building systems that solve your specific problems.

Process foundation beats shiny tools.
Every single time.

When you see disruption coming, you have choices:

Most people stop at #2.

They learn AI, feel good about staying current, then compete in the same shrinking market using the same approaches as everyone else.

I chose #3.

Not because I’m special — but because I recognized something important:

I know how to build systems.
Most people can’t or won’t.

That’s not an advantage to waste.
That’s an advantage to leverage.

If you’re facing disruption and want to build your own strategic advantage, reply to this email with the biggest bottleneck you’re dealing with right now.

I’ll show you how to think about it structurally.
Not generic advice.
Not another tool recommendation.

Strategic thinking that actually moves the needle.

P.S.
That job search assistant I built? It’s still running.
But now it’s not finding me roles — it’s part of the infrastructure that built what I’m doing today.

More on that soon.