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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

#51

Post by dagss »

I have seen cases of companies that focus on recruiting seniors that get a lot of product responsibility and can quickly find solutions since they see the customer/product view and also will have a good feeling for how to and in which order to best deliver things in code. So after talking to a customer about a problem, you just go and "talk" to the computer about the solution and get it out of the way quickly..

I have also seen cases of companies where you have one PM, one PO and one Team Lead to manage a group of four developers. In that case developers are seen more as translators.

My view of looking at this now is it is a bit like learning a language. Code is the tool you use to talk to a computer.

If you need to close a deal in a country where English is not spoken, do you prefer to send a businessperson who knows the language, or do you send a businessperson + a translator?

I much prefer companies where those who know how to code can still fill more of the product/business role than be seen as translators. However I realize it is hard to find people who know both and may be easier to recruit a combination business/product people who happen to not speak code, and translators who happen to speak code.

This is perhaps also the open secret about startups: People speaking the language of computers without being limited by their role to act as translators.

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

#52

Post by href »

As long as there is creativity in programming, and I think there is a fair bit of that, AI is just going to be a tool.

GPT-4 is great at sourcing human knowledge, but I think it can't really walk unbeaten paths. This is where humans shine.

Case in point: I tried to ask the AI to come up with a new World War Z chapter set in Switzerland, and it was unable to produce anything original. I had to keep feeding it ideas, so it could add something new and interesting.

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

#53

Post by 6786590519 »

Lio wrote: post #44
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?

The 5 Platonic Solids."

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

#54

Post by noodles_nomore »

An average programmer's main job is to track down and fix bugs that shouldn't exist inside software that shouldn't exist build on frameworks that shouldn't exist for companies that shouldn't exist solving problems that shouldn't exist in industry niches that shouldn't exist. I'm 100% convinced that, if someone comes along and creates something that actually obsoletes 95% of programming jobs, everyone would very quickly come to the conclusion that they don't need it and it doesn't work anyway.

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

#55

Post by marginalia_nu »

ngcazz wrote: post #45

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…

Sure, but that sort of thinking is a way to become more than a factory worker.

Programming is magic. It lets you change how the world works. Never forget that.

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

#56

Post by ChatGTP »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #11
austin-cheney wrote: post #8

That sounds like a good thing. There are many people paid to write software who absolutely cannot write original code and have no idea how things actually work. A lot of that can be, and probably should be, eliminated by AI.

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.

https://openai.com/charter

I found this hard to read personally but have a look.

Edit: I find it hard to read because I believe it’s imposing and it’s a hypocritical piece of corporate new age woke trash.

The goal is to make a bunch of money, just be honest about it.

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

#57

Post by bcherny »

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…

The advice isn’t about coding vs managing. What John is saying is to deeply understand why you’re building something, so that you can build it better. If you over focus on the what — the implementation, the language, the approach — you won’t be as good, and your work may be increasingly replaced by AI.

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

#58

Post by marginalia_nu »

onion2k wrote: post #49
pharmakom wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Eh, the difference is almost entirely in presentation. At the core a car today doesn't do significantly more than a car in 1962.

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

#59

Post by ulfw »

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.

How old are you? This is a very idealistic point of view. I might call it a "I watch a lot of Star Trek" utopian kind of view.

Vast majority of people in the real world do a "useless job". What do you think they should be doing and how do they get those alternative opportunities to feed themselves and their families?

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

#60

Post by ngcazz »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #55
ngcazz wrote: post #45

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…

Sure, but that sort of thinking is a way to become more than a factory worker. Programming is magic. It lets you change how the world works. Never forget that.

That's a simple and yet super poignant point that I wish I'd made when I picked up and left that role :)
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