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Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

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Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#881

Post by VirusNewbie »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #445
dogman144 wrote: post #378

The last fairly technical career to get surprisingly and fully automated in the way this post displays concern about - trading. I spent a lot of time with traders in early '00's and then '10's when the automation was going full tilt. Common feedback I heard from these highly paid, highly technical, highly professional traders in a niche indusry running the world in its way was: - How complex the job was - How high a…

I like this comment, it is exceptionally insightful. Any interesting question is "How is programming like trading securities?" I believe an argument can be made that the bulk of what goes for "programming" today is simply hooking up existing pieces in ways that achieve a specific goal. When the goal can be adequately specified[1] the task of hooking up the pieces to achieve that goal is fairly mechanical. Just like t…

>I believe an argument can be made that the bulk of what goes for "programming" today is simply hooking up existing pieces in ways that achieve a specific goal. When the goal can be adequately specified[1] the task of hooking up the pieces to achieve that goal is fairly mechanical. Just like the business of tracking trades in markets and extracting directional flow and then anticipating the flow by enough to make a profit is something trading algorithms can do.

right, but when python came into popularity it's not like we reduced the number of engineers 10 fold, even though it used to take a team 10x as long to write similar functionality in C++.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#883

Post by ericb »

For now, taste and debugging still rule the day.

o1 designed some code for me a few hours ago where the method it named "increment" also did the "limit-check", and "disable" functionality as side-effects.

In the longer run, SWE's evolve to become these other roles, but on-steroids:

- Entrepreneur - Product Manager - Architect - QA - DevOps - Inventor

Someone still has to make sure the solution is needed, the right fit for the problem given the existing ecosystems, check the code, deploy the code and debug problems. And even if those tasks take fewer people, how many more entrepreneurs become enabled by fast code generation?

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#884

Post by og2023 »

sdybskiy wrote: post #102

I just copied the html from this thread into Claude to get a summary. I think being very realistic, a lot of SWE job requirements will be replaced by LLMs. The expertise to pick the right tool for the right job based on previous experience that senior engineers poses is something that can probably be taught to an LLM. Having the ability to provide a business case for the technology to stakeholders that aren't technol…

> I think positioning yourself as an expert / bridge between technology and business is what will future-proof a lot of SWE.

Could you provide a few examples of roles and companies where this could be applicable please?

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#885

Post by erik_seaberg »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #881
ChuckMcM wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this comment, it is exceptionally insightful. Any interesting question is "How is programming like trading securities?" I believe an argument can be made that the bulk of what goes for "programming" today is simply hooking up existing pieces in ways that achieve a specific goal. When the goal can be adequately specified[1] the task of hooking up the pieces to achieve that goal is fairly mechanical. Just like t…

>I believe an argument can be made that the bulk of what goes for "programming" today is simply hooking up existing pieces in ways that achieve a specific goal. When the goal can be adequately specified[1] the task of hooking up the pieces to achieve that goal is fairly mechanical. Just like the business of tracking trades in markets and extracting directional flow and then anticipating the flow by enough to make a p…

Software demand skyrocketed because of the WWW, which came out in 1991 just before Python (although Perl, slightly more mature, saw more use in the early days).

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#886

Post by atomsatomsatoms »

simianparrot wrote: post #80

Nothing because I’m a senior and LLM’s never provide code that pass my sniff test, and it remains a waste of time. I have a job at a place I love and get more people in my direct network and extended contacting me about work than ever before in my 20 year career. And finally I keep myself sharp by always making sure I challenge myself creatively. I’m not afraid to delve into areas to understand them that might look “…

"delve"

hmmmmm

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#889

Post by Der_Einzige »

pdimitar wrote: post #500
jprete wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a message board frequented by extremely tech-involved people. I'd expect the vast majority of people here to have some financial interest in LLMs - big-tech equity, direct employment, AI startup, AI influencer, or whatever.

Yeah, very likely. It's the new gold rush, and they are commanding wages that make me drool (and also make me want to howl in pain and agony and envy but hey, let's not mention the obvious, shall we?). I always forget the name of that law but... it's hard to make somebody understand something if their salary depends on them not understanding it.

For similar reasons, I can confidently say that your disliking of LLMs is sour grapes.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#890

Post by richardw »

wyclif wrote: post #498
cadamsau wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One hundred per cent this. LLM pair programming is unbelievably fun, satisfying, and productive. Why type out the code when you can instead watch it being typed while thinking of and typing out/speaking the next thing you want. For those who enjoy typing, you could try to get a job dictating letters for lawyers, but something tells me that’s on the way out too.

What do you prefer to use for LLM pair programming?

Claude 70%. ChatGPT o1 for anything that needs more iterations, Cursor for local autocomplete, tested Gemini for concepts and it seemed solid. Replit when I want it to generate everything, from setting up a DB etc for any quick projects. But it’s a bit annoying and drives into a ditch a lot.

I honestly have to keep a tight rein on them all, so I usually ask for concepts first with no code, and need to iterate or start again a few times to get what I need. Get clear instructions, then generate. Drag in context, tight reins on changes I want. Make minor changes rather than wholesale.

Tricks I use. “Do you have any questions?” And “tell me what you want to do first.” Trigger it into the right latent space first, get the right neurons firing. Also “how else could I do this”. It’ll sometimes choose bad algo’s so you need to know your DSA, and it loves to overcomplicate. Tight reins :)

Claude’s personality is great. Just wants to help.

All work best on common languages and libraries. Edge cases or new versions get them confused. But you can paste in a new api and it’ll code against that perfectly.

I also use the API’s a lot, from cheap to pricy depending on task. Lots of data extraction, classifying. I got a (pricier model) data cleaner working on other data generated by a cheaper model, asking it to check eg 20 rows in each batch for consistency. Did a great job.

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