🎉 The Secret Developer’s Wishes for 2026

It’s a Wednesday, but not any Wednesday. Because this Wednesday is the end of the year.

2025 is out, and 2026 is in.

In a rare bout of optimism (or at least I’d say reverse optimism) I’d like to say what things I’m happy to see the back of.

Yes, these are the things that I never want to see again. I’ll split these into personal and general, for those who like to read this blog to follow the exciting world of The Secret Developer (most of you, I’d imagine) and those who are interested in software development.

Personal

1. Changing Job

I hate changing job. This year I changed to a much larger company and struggled to pass probation partially because of the poor onboarding process.

It wasn’t a fun time, was stressful and no fun at all.

I admit eventually I’ll need to change job again (it’s the best way to get a salary hike) but I’ll be in no hurry to do so. Not after this experience.

2. Asking for Help

I guess this is related to the last point. I’m tired of working somewhere and asking for help and getting punished for doing so.

Because this is exactly what happened to me, you ask people to help you from their greater knowledge and get bumped down for doing so is painful.

I guess you need to work alongside people you trust and like. That’s not always an option though is it?

The Industry

1. Judgement to Stop Being so Harsh

I guess this is related to the personal points above.

Why are people in this industry so harsh? Why do we want to raise up the barriers and prevent junior software developers entering the industry? Is it to make ourselves feel better?

I guess that’s it. We want to feel better about ourselves. So we should remember that It’s Hello, World not hello world.

2. For “WFH” to Mean Working From Home

Let’s stop pretending that logging into Slack once a day counts as presence, and believing this is a good metric for a good software developer. If you’re not going to do the work, at least make room for those of us who are still pretending to have some morals at work.

And if you’re going to judge me on how long I’ve been working that’s not going to help anyone.

3. For Interviews to Involve Less Sadism

As I’ve mentioned I’m quite unwilling to get a new job. That’s compounded by the issue that getting a job is such a hunger games style battle.

Getting through the initial resume screen? Difficult.

Going through an AI interview? Brutal.

Getting rejected at the final stage for no good reason? Terrible.

4. For AI to be Useful… and Not in the Way that Gets Us All Fired

AI can help developers write code, review code, and maybe even justify keeping that Slack tab open.

Yet if AI is going to replace anyone, let it be the person who thinks adding two reviewers to a pull request speeds things up.

Conclusion

Anyway, so here’s to 2026.

I hope there are fewer days that make me feel kicked, and less days that make me feel like rolling in a ball like a puppy.

That is, I hope this year just sucks a little less. Anyone with me?

About The Author

Professional Software Developer “The Secret Developer” can be found on Twitter @TheSDeveloper.

The Secret Developer is thinking of reviewing some pull requests today, and marking as requires changes.