The creeping IT apocalypse • Hacker News Board

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#231

Post by passthefist » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 10:27 PM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #50

hobs wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I replaced a person with a one line code change (performance tuning) - they got her another job though. Literally had a business call to see if they could run another instance of $LOB_SOFTWARE because they had a person clicking a button for 40 hours a week.

That kind of work is easy to automate. Until you reach a situation when it has to be decided when a person has to click the button. And with what data they are supposed to click it. Often it's not easy to make those decisions through code. That is because the person making those click decisions, has a lot of tribal knowledge of the business situation at hand, which triggers only when the situation presents itself. Bu…

There's hybrid cases though, where you can use automation/business logic to lower the skill floor required for some work.

That's pretty much the business model of the company I work for. We have what is essentially a call center using custom CRM/workflow software doing work that used to be done by many times more people with much more training. Instead of 5 licensed and well paid people we do the same work with one lower paid and less trained person assisted with software.

Humans are still involved to make decisions when needed and for communication, but the simple and clear stuff is automated so we can hire pretty much anyone.

It's good for our clients since we are cheaper and more efficient, but less good for the workers we're replacing who will need to find new marketable skills or fall down the ladder.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#232

Post by juddlyon » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 10:27 PM UTC

The use of the word "apocalypse" seems hyperbolic. How are these changes any different than previous technological advances?

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#233

Post by jimbokun » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 10:38 PM UTC

mark_l_watson wrote: post #3

Nice blog, keep writing. I manage a machine learning team and I also think that at least partially automated data curation and modeling will reduce the number of people required in my field. It might take 5 or 10 years, but I think it will happen. I think you are spot on that IT and devops will take a hit. I look more at Heroku’s model that AWS and GCP as the future. That said AWS and GCP will keep getting more ‘Hero…

"I manage a machine learning team and I also think that at least partially automated data curation and modeling will reduce the number of people required in my field."

I mean, if it doesn't, what the hell are you even doing?

The whole point of technology and modern capitalism is to increase automation, increase the amount produced by the same number of workers, and increase the overall amount of wealth in the world and improve overall living conditions for everyone (setting aside very important questions of distribution). I just find it odd people in the computer technology industry find this shocking or especially worrying.

"I look more at Heroku’s model that AWS and GCP as the future."

Google's App Engine was much closer to the Heroku approach, and the AWS approach won. So I will be pretty surprised if the Heroku approach wins out.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#234

Post by megaman8 » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 10:50 PM UTC

It's kinda tough figuring out a whole new direction if you're in IT. But, if you're looking to get into web development, it's a pretty good time. Start off with HTML, CSS, Javascript and AJAX. that's the foundation and from there you can learn VUE/basic HTML/css from my tutorials: https://codeorc.com

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#235

Post by goobynight » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 10:55 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #229

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #32

I think for most mid level guys the threat isn't AI doing their job. I think its the influx of people who will undoubtedly join the "coding" workforce once automation takes away many trivial jobs like driving trucks, cabs, or flipping hamburgers at McDonalds. All these people will be told to retrain themselves and go into the tech sector, and we'll get a huge influx of cheap tech people.

"All these people will be told to retrain themselves and go into the tech sector, and we'll get a huge influx of cheap tech people." This was the fear with "India" in the 1990s, and how it was going to kill all of our wages. I make a lot more money now than I did then.

The limiting factor there though is probably that it is currently 4am in India and they can't typically be brought into a US office to be trained by your core team.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#236

Post by gameface » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 11:40 PM UTC

On the other hand, as an individual working in IT I can achieve so much more than I could before... team sizes seem like they’re a lot smaller now as a result. That’s the upside, surely?

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#237

Post by brokenmachine » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 11:41 PM UTC

Negitivefrags wrote: post #199

thisisit wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The trick is to write your resume so it gets past HR's filter Any tips on how to do that?

One idea I heard recently was to include a copy of the job description that the HR person wrote in your resume. You include it in such a way that it can’t be seen visibly. For example, make the font size really small and the colour the same as the background colour. The theory here is that programs that automatically scan resumes for keywords will always find the ones they are looking for. I can’t say I have tried th…

Then, instead of SEO, you can put REO (Resume Engine Optimization) on your resume as well.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#238

Post by halbritt » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 11:56 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #64

munin wrote: post #5

This kind of change has also impacted me. It shows up when I'm trying to give students advice about starting their careers, and I realize that the first jobs I had (system administrator, SOC worker) have been replaced by robots. Especially in the SOC, I was a "Tier 1" analyst that would do monitoring (watching a bank of green lights waiting for one to turn red) and first level triage and analysis. This has been repla…

Was watching David Bull talk about historical Japanese wood carving. He described how the introduction of the printing press to Japan killed the entry-level, apprenticeship positions in printing.

Hello fellow David Bull fan.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#239

Post by halbritt » Fri, Jan 18, 2019, 12:03 AM UTC

paulie_a wrote: post #94

normal_man wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean this is already an acknowledged good approach. Companies don't want to make that investment though, hiring both a senior and a junior who won't be immediately productive, and keep chasing the mythical senior who will work for mid-level salary.

It's cute that companies think junior or seniors will be immediately productive. There is a ramp up period. Hell the first day is probably just paperwork. Then 3 months of getting integrated.

I'm not sure how many companies really think this, not that I'm arguing the point. I do know that successful companies realize that developer ramp to productivity time is an important metric and attempt to optimize that metric.

There's a whole set of fairly basic tasks that can be done that can get a developer to the point of submitting a PR on their first day. Many, many companies screw that up.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#240

Post by flukus » Fri, Jan 18, 2019, 12:14 AM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #179

wasdfff wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The community college also has an automotive repair program. You’d be hard pressed to find a decent school with an IT or any other of these vocational programs at their main campuses. That’s because it trains for the job, not for the field. While you’d probably get up and running easier with an IT degree since you know the current tooling, you’d be worse off than someone with the conceptual knowledge that comes with…

My community college is extremely "decent", thank you. In most cases, other than needing to check of the "have a bachelor's degree" box for job application purposes, most people will probably get more bang for their buck in a community college than they ever will in a fancier school. Depending on what your local community college offers, there's a good chance that for a fraction of the cost, you can pick up nearly an…

I went through community college over a decade ago, I've spent a depressing amount of time since teaching people with CompSci degrees about CompSci concepts.

I've also run internships with CompSci graduates and have to say they're basically unemployable when they graduate, they might know some theory but they can't build anything. Community College teaches you to build things, so you come out with skills relevant to the workplace and you can fill in the CompSci stuff later.