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Ask HN: AI impact on future developer career

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Re: Ask HN: AI impact on future developer career

#31

Post by WgaqPdNr7PGLGVW »

muzani wrote: post #22
ghoshbishakh wrote: post #10

All my devs who try to use ChatGPT or similar tools end up wasting more time that those who just jump into the code and try to work everything out themselves. How long till this balance changes is not known to me.

GPT-4 is able to do Leetcode with well over 90% accuracy, and all you have to do is give it a screenshot of the question. It takes another minute or so to find more optimal solutions. It's not the best, but if the entire value of a junior is solving Leetcode Hard questions, then ChatGPT is going to it faster and cheaper. If you can phrase all programming in the style of a Stack Overflow or Leetcode problem, AI will s…

> GPT-4 is able to do Leetcode with well over 90% accuracy, and all you have to do is give it a screenshot of the question.

This is true in the way that Google Search is able to solve Leetcode problems.

GPT-4 struggles with even simple real world codebases.

Re: Ask HN: AI impact on future developer career

#32

Post by cultofthecow »

p1esk wrote: post #30
cultofthecow wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it will be capable to replace a junior dev?

Yes. It will go like that: “should we hire a senior dev and a junior dev? Nah, a senior dev plus GPT5 subscription should be enough to do the workload”. And it will be enough.

I think you're wrong honestly. I think the nature of Software Engineering is something else. Automation and increasing efficiency. All the tools are for this. AI is just a tool. Basically it will increase expectations for all of the levels (Juniors to Principals). There won't be less roles. It's just SWE will be required to do more.

Re: Ask HN: AI impact on future developer career

#33

Post by p1esk »

cultofthecow wrote: post #32
p1esk wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It will go like that: “should we hire a senior dev and a junior dev? Nah, a senior dev plus GPT5 subscription should be enough to do the workload”. And it will be enough.

I think you're wrong honestly. I think the nature of Software Engineering is something else. Automation and increasing efficiency. All the tools are for this. AI is just a tool. Basically it will increase expectations for all of the levels (Juniors to Principals). There won't be less roles. It's just SWE will be required to do more.

I really hope I’m wrong. Can you imagine the massive unemployment and social chaos if I’m not? I’m rarely wrong about AI though. For example, five years ago I predicted (in a comment here on HN) Turing test will be passed within two years. People called me bat shit crazy, said “in 50 years“, “not in my lifetime”, only one said “in 10 years”. GPT3 happened a year later, and after GPT3.5 people suddenly forgot about the importance of TT as a milestone. I guess it no longer requires “AI”.

I’m a Principal level SWE, and a team lead. I have junior devs on my team. I only need a similar increase of intelligence from GPT4 as 3.5–>4.0 to replace them.

Re: Ask HN: AI impact on future developer career

#34

Post by cultofthecow »

p1esk wrote: post #33
cultofthecow wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're wrong honestly. I think the nature of Software Engineering is something else. Automation and increasing efficiency. All the tools are for this. AI is just a tool. Basically it will increase expectations for all of the levels (Juniors to Principals). There won't be less roles. It's just SWE will be required to do more.

I really hope I’m wrong. Can you imagine the massive unemployment and social chaos if I’m not? I’m rarely wrong about AI though. For example, five years ago I predicted (in a comment here on HN) Turing test will be passed within two years. People called me bat shit crazy, said “in 50 years“, “not in my lifetime”, only one said “in 10 years”. GPT3 happened a year later, and after GPT3.5 people suddenly forgot about th…

It's strange. I'm in a similar position. I need more of them with more of a tools like GPT-N-whatever just to achieve more. Maybe your market niche is a bit small that you'll get to the ceiling and no development needed. Which is ok.

Anyways I hope you're right to be honest. And let's see.

Re: Ask HN: AI impact on future developer career

#35

Post by oidar »

cultofthecow wrote: post #34
p1esk wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope I’m wrong. Can you imagine the massive unemployment and social chaos if I’m not? I’m rarely wrong about AI though. For example, five years ago I predicted (in a comment here on HN) Turing test will be passed within two years. People called me bat shit crazy, said “in 50 years“, “not in my lifetime”, only one said “in 10 years”. GPT3 happened a year later, and after GPT3.5 people suddenly forgot about th…

It's strange. I'm in a similar position. I need more of them with more of a tools like GPT-N-whatever just to achieve more. Maybe your market niche is a bit small that you'll get to the ceiling and no development needed. Which is ok. Anyways I hope you're right to be honest. And let's see.

Why do you hope they are right?

Re: Ask HN: AI impact on future developer career

#36

Post by cultofthecow »

oidar wrote: post #35
cultofthecow wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's strange. I'm in a similar position. I need more of them with more of a tools like GPT-N-whatever just to achieve more. Maybe your market niche is a bit small that you'll get to the ceiling and no development needed. Which is ok. Anyways I hope you're right to be honest. And let's see.

Why do you hope they are right?

Well.. Its a combination.

I would love to the industry to have a higher entrance barrier.

I would love to be able to solve more with less.

I would love industry to deliver more value with a higher speed.

Progress is inevitable. So I would love to start adapting faster and be on top of it even if it will require me to leave my current role and maybe switch to another one.

I've seen too many people here in IT doing the things they don't like or coming to the job simply because "it pays bills". I've seen 25 yoe engineers who know literally nothing because they were doing literally nothing for the last 20 years. I've seen junior developers who barely know fundamentals and I'm speaking of some really dummy things. I hope industry will naturally heal itself even if it'll make me leave or switch.

Re: Ask HN: AI impact on future developer career

#37

Post by savorypiano »

alismayilov wrote: post #13
ghoshbishakh wrote: post #10

All my devs who try to use ChatGPT or similar tools end up wasting more time that those who just jump into the code and try to work everything out themselves. How long till this balance changes is not known to me.

I did a small survey around my circle and I got response that I did not believe. The majority of developers are using LLMs at least 10-20% time. There are some developers that more than 40% of their code are written by LLMs. It would be great if stackoverflow and/or similar companies do the developer survey in the industry.

I think 20% is easily believable. LLM may not do more complex functions or work with your data, but a lot of the busywork of coding is done almost instantly. Just not having to look through library docs or sort through StackOverflow is already worth 10%.

I don't think LLM will replace software engineers anytime soon, as a whole, but removing the need for the bottom 10% is not a stretch at all. That has massive implications for salary, imo, except for the top end.

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