An unemployed engineer used AI tools to rebuild work as a solo creator
At the start of 2024, a UK chartered engineer and specialist became unemployed for the first time. After moving to Bermuda and finishing a contract, remote work was hard to find despite about ten years of industry experience. Teaching became the next path.
ChatGPT helped turn existing SimPy knowledge into a beginner guide and helped shape it for an online site built by hand in Google Sites. ChatGPT also helped plan two courses, one about Python and one about , while the solo creator side of the work was learned from scratch. The bigger shift came in January 2025, when o1 was used inside Copilot in PyCharm on a real problem.
It felt far stronger than ordinary chat because it worked through a modeling problem that would normally take much of a day.
Key points
- A UK chartered engineer became unemployed in early 2024 after a contract ended.
- ChatGPT helped turn SimPy expertise into a beginner guide for an online site.
- ChatGPT also helped plan Python and courses.
- In January 2025, o1 was used inside Copilot in PyCharm on a real task.
- The strongest effect came from watching AI work through a modeling problem that would usually take much of a day.