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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

#361

Post by wccrawford »

I'm a senior developer, and my best developer got hired because she obviously knew how to get things done. Having the ability to program was a requirement, but we actually made room in our budget for an additional programmer because it was so obvious she was going to do a good job because of her attitude and other skills.

Had she applied at the same time as everyone else (she was a week later, IIRC) she would have gotten the job instead of the other person, and we wouldn't have made room in the budget for anyone.

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

#362

Post by awesomeMilou »

tempodox wrote: post #246

A digital parrot, no matter how lifelike its utterances, cannot be genuinely creative. Writers of boilerplate and empty drivel will probably be replaced by language models, but not every software developer is like that.

Wow, I had to scroll for what feels like the first 100 comments to find a controversial opinion in this thread. Thank you!

Offtopic, but it's scary how HN actually becomes worse than Reddit on these ChatGPT posts.

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

#363

Post by oytis »

carlmr wrote: post #29

Looking back we had one CS professor who in 2007 predicted we'd all be jobless in ten years, i.e. 2017. His prediction was based on the trends he was seeing at the time. But it wasn't even AI. Instead he made this prediction because he saw the rise of no-code tools replacing software developers because managers could finally cut out the pesky "translators", i.e. software developers. I said it then and I will say it n…

The new systems unlike no-code tools support dialogue in natural language though. You don't need to specify it exactly, you give an approximate idea, and then correct, correct an correct until you get what you want.

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

#364

Post by brianwawok »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #259
carlmr wrote: post #29

Looking back we had one CS professor who in 2007 predicted we'd all be jobless in ten years, i.e. 2017. His prediction was based on the trends he was seeing at the time. But it wasn't even AI. Instead he made this prediction because he saw the rise of no-code tools replacing software developers because managers could finally cut out the pesky "translators", i.e. software developers. I said it then and I will say it n…

> So exact in fact that they will need to specify a program in a click and drag interface, or in human language. This. I started programming in Machine Code, where the "editor" was a pad of graph paper. I've watched management- and business-focused people sneer at us geeks for my entire career, and watched them drool over the thought of finally getting rid of us. Hasn't happened yet. > I'd be surprised if the next st…

And the way to get back at PHB is to form a tech lead software company and hire 0 people with MBAs.

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

#365

Post by sokoloff »

Yoric wrote: post #349
sokoloff wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will be an effectively endless demand for anyone who can create 10x the value while only demanding 3x the pay of the typical worker. I don’t see AI changing that principle. Most everyone who is “good at programming” today will be totally fine (and maybe even better off ).

> There will be an effectively endless demand for anyone who can create 10x the value while only demanding 3x the pay of the typical worker. That's one possible future. Another future is one in which a single AI assisted "full tech developer" can solve all the coding problems of a company within say, one week. No company will require the services of an entire "full tech developer", so society will employ roughly one…

Do you think that, within a week, anyone could even understand all the coding problems of a company large enough to employ an SWE today?

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

#366

Post by Jensson »

DandyDev wrote: post #316
andybak wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since they hire software developers to make the specification more rigid, and the managers don't seem to be getting better at this over time, why would you believe this skill set is going to go away? Some people can take a business goal and figure out how to turn it into a clear spec. Sometimes these people are programmers. However I know programmers who suck at this and I know non-programmers who don't.

This is so true! I see people in this thread talking about the contempt that "idea people" have for programmers/software engineers, but at the same time I have experienced Product Managers (the quintessential idea people?) who were really good at turning their ideas into super detailed specs. As an aside, I'm getting a bit tired from the "programmers vs product/business people" trope. The average software engineer wo…

> The average software engineer would be nothing without a good product manager in my experience

The average software engineer doesn't have a good product manager, he has an average product manager. They still get things done.

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

#367

Post by habibur »

RivieraKid wrote: post #283

Here's my current thinking on the impact of GPT-4 on the developer job market: - I expect developer productivity to go up 1.5x - 15x over the next several years assuming GTP-4 based tooling is integrated into IDEs. - There will be two opposing forces acting on developer wages. First, developers will be more productive, therefore the price of one hour of work should go up. But - the supply of developer output will inc…

> - I expect developer productivity to go up 1.5x - 15x over the next several years assuming GTP-4 based tooling is integrated into IDEs.

Hardly. 10% of the time spent is in writing code and the other 90% goes behind debugging and fixing things.

Even if AI shrinks the time spent in that 10% in writing by another 90%, you still have have to take full time for maintaining that code. Changing, debugging, testing, deploying, profiling, log analysis.

Worse, its now someone else's code you need to understand and debug, and not the one written by yourself.

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

#368

Post by ilyt »

j7ake wrote: post #341
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So exact in fact that they will need to specify a program in a click and drag interface, or in human language. This. I started programming in Machine Code, where the "editor" was a pad of graph paper. I've watched management- and business-focused people sneer at us geeks for my entire career, and watched them drool over the thought of finally getting rid of us. Hasn't happened yet. > I'd be surprised if the next st…

This hits deep and resonates beyond tech. This “ideas” versus “make things happen” divide is also prevalent in science and art.

Ye, often the "creator", the "head" gets credited with everything a whole team come up with. Sure, picking the good and directing it to consistent whole is important but they would be nothing without people that produced that in the first place.

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

#369

Post by ilyt »

eldritch_4ier wrote: post #350
carlmr wrote: post #29

Looking back we had one CS professor who in 2007 predicted we'd all be jobless in ten years, i.e. 2017. His prediction was based on the trends he was seeing at the time. But it wasn't even AI. Instead he made this prediction because he saw the rise of no-code tools replacing software developers because managers could finally cut out the pesky "translators", i.e. software developers. I said it then and I will say it n…

All points the horses made before cars all but replaced them. “The humans need to get from A to B and it’s not like they’ve gotten any faster with their own 2 legs”. How does this manager-engineer look like now? Managers specify what they need in plain language, and both parties go back and forth with increasing complexity to create based on the shared vision. Managers can already pull off a similar dance with ChatGP…

Manager would be easier to replace with ChatGPT than a software developer

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

#370

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

A_Venom_Roll wrote: post #324
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things that I'm fairly good at, is walking people from "Crazy Idea That Will Never Work," through to "Finished Product That People Want." It tends to be a very long process, and often involves a lot of "trial balloons." I just went through that, in the last couple of years. The project we're realizing, looks absolutely nothing at all like what the CEO originally dreamed up, but everyone that has seen it, l…

I love this approach. What is your current role that allows you to do that?

In the project I’m on, I’m basically the CTO (sort of meaningless, as I’m the only front end programmer, and also do most of the backend).

I could be a lot more of a pain in the butt than I am, as I have a lot of leverage, but one of my goals is to help others on the team (including a young CEO) to learn how to make ship software.

If I were working on my own, I probably would have shipped, eighteen months ago.

No one is making a dime. It’s a nonprofit effort.

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