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Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

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Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#41

Post by raincole »

csande17 wrote: post #16
pcthrowaway wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This person is asking about career prospects 10-15 years out though. I'm sorry, but the landscape in then might be as alien to someone asking today, as todays would have been to someone asking 15 years ago (2008). What John said is correct, but personally I think he's underplaying how much people could be affected. Those "product skills" take years of grinding to really sharpen, and in 15 years only a few people migh…

Was the tech landscape much different 10-15 years ago? This is a genuine question; the iPhone App Store was really the last "big thing" to happen to the industry in my mind, and it came out in 2008.

No much different. If you were an intern Java programmer 10 years ago, it's totally possible that you're still a senior Java programmer today.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#42

Post by qprofyeh »

choppsv1 wrote: post #33

I love to code, as much as I loved math in college, but coding paid better and I'm pretty good at it. Those were my choices though b/c I want to do something I love. Sure, I keep my eye on the "Delivered Value" by making sure I engineer solutions to real problems, but I've never wanted to move out of coding and into managing engineers to build stuff. I want to code. It seems to me that the advice given here would be…

He said nothing about management. What I think he means by “guiding” is more related to prompt engineering, and how “coding” will evolve from exclusively using programming and scripting languages to a wider creative landscape of generative (guiding) techniques.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#43

Post by bloqs »

dijit wrote: post #22
FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those people still need to eat and pay rent so maybe we should solve that before making who knows how many millions of people jobless.

Useless jobs shouldn't exist, people should be able to live without wasting resources and their life in doing false work.

The pemise that they are being paid to do the job (and there isnt one of them) implies that its not false work.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#44

Post by Lio »

gumballindie wrote: post #12

Just avoid careers in software development. These are not high paying, if you factor in total time invested and spent working; and you have to waste your life away sitting in an office chasing tickets. Nothing engineery about it. It’s modern day assembly line work.

What would you describe as a high paying job?

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#45

Post by ngcazz »

Unless you're already getting paid for delivering a Big Design Up Front, by a customer who thinks they know what the software needs to do.

In that case there's zero incentive to place yourself in your user's shoes and work to mitigate those problems. You're a feature factory getting paid to reinforce existing workflows and paradigms, and you'd better not forget that as your efforts to recenter the conversation around user needs will be met with derision and you'll be seen as confrontational.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#46

Post by cwillu »

choppsv1 wrote: post #33

I love to code, as much as I loved math in college, but coding paid better and I'm pretty good at it. Those were my choices though b/c I want to do something I love. Sure, I keep my eye on the "Delivered Value" by making sure I engineer solutions to real problems, but I've never wanted to move out of coding and into managing engineers to build stuff. I want to code. It seems to me that the advice given here would be…

It's like telling a musician to become a DJ because the point of performing is to entertain people.

It's not wrong, but it's also not applicable to all people who enjoy performing an instrument.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#47

Post by CSMastermind »

There's a weird phenomenon I've seen in a few domains of prideful ignorance.

Backend engineers who proudly don't know how to write frontend code and vice versa. Professional engineers who refuse to learn how to use modern IDEs and monitoring platforms. People who don't know how to quickly prototype software as if building something without complete rigor is beneath them. People who refuse to learn or work in certain programming languages they deem inferior.

And rather than seeing this as a gap in their own skillset they think of it as a mark of intelligence or moral superiority.

I suspect we'll see another divide around AI assisted coding with some engineers simply refusing to learn how to use the tools effectively to make themselves more productive as a point of pride.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#48

Post by kaetemi »

szundi wrote: post #4

I would just remind everyone that this so-called intelligence is generative text editor and feeds on our creativity/content. Probably it is going to degenerate (pun intended) after feeding on stuff that it generated itself. What do you think?

Apparently it's the opposite. They can improve its output by letting it reason logically or critically on its own output, somewhat like a thought monologue I assume. Not familiar with the details, though.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#49

Post by onion2k »

pharmakom wrote: post #17
pcthrowaway wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This person is asking about career prospects 10-15 years out though. I'm sorry, but the landscape in then might be as alien to someone asking today, as todays would have been to someone asking 15 years ago (2008). What John said is correct, but personally I think he's underplaying how much people could be affected. Those "product skills" take years of grinding to really sharpen, and in 15 years only a few people migh…

2008 wasn’t so different was it? I guess the big new thing in work since then is the “gig economy”.

We've had LLMs for about 5 years so far in non-academic research. If we're talking 10 years out that means we're looking at tech that's about 1/3 through its development to date.

Take any mature-ish technology that you use today and compare the version 1/3 through its life to the version you use now. Look at Chrome 20 compare to Chrome 111, or React 14 compared to React 18, or an iPhone 4 compared to an iPhone 14, or a car from 1950 compared to a car today...

The difference is always quite significant. Superficially they're still the same thing, but if you look at the detail everything is just better. AI will be the same.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#50

Post by timwheeler »

rs_rs_rs_rs_rs wrote: post #5

This reminds me of a tweet I saw couple of weeks ago from someone(I don't remember who it was) that said the reason they ship stuff fast is because they're using jQuery. Focus on what you're building and use the tools you're experienced with, don't jump on every fad.

Was it @levelsio?
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