AI Workforce Is Already Coming for Junior Developer Jobs on Wall Street • Hacker News Board

Re: AI Workforce Is Already Coming for Junior Developer Jobs on Wall Street

#31

Post by musicale » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 6:13 AM UTC

guluarte wrote: post #9

merpnderp wrote: post #5

Am I missing some demos of LLM’s producing jr. Dev level work, because from my experience this seems implausible.

AI is making developers more productive, although I doubt that will cause a shortage in jobs

> AI is making developers more productive, although I doubt that will cause a shortage in jobs

It appears to have already led to layoffs and hiring cutbacks.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/04/tech/ai-tech-layoffs/index.ht...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/ibm-pause-hiring-plans-re...

Re: AI Workforce Is Already Coming for Junior Developer Jobs on Wall Street

#32

Post by musicale » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 6:19 AM UTC

throwaway5959 wrote: post #20

MichaelZuo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, I can easily see a team of a dozen developers shrunk down by half and still maintain the same quantity and quality of output.

It’s wild how people never seem to say “wow, now our team of 12 can be twice as productive. Think about how much less stressed they’ll be and more productive we’ll be able to be for the company!”.

In my experience, the return rate for improved productivity is usually targeted at around 99% to the company, 1% to employees.

Re: AI Workforce Is Already Coming for Junior Developer Jobs on Wall Street

#33

Post by musicale » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 6:22 AM UTC

robluxus wrote: post #21

throwaway5959 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s wild how people never seem to say “wow, now our team of 12 can be twice as productive. Think about how much less stressed they’ll be and more productive we’ll be able to be for the company!”.

Because if you start making more widgets then now your support, marketing, sales acquisition et al costs also have to scale. But that needs foresight... And until the AI workforce comes for those too, it's easier to claim short term victory.

Great answer that addresses the business incentives. Scaling is hard (perhaps impossible in some markets) and possibly expensive, while cutting labor costs has an immediate benefit to the bottom line.

Re: AI Workforce Is Already Coming for Junior Developer Jobs on Wall Street

#34

Post by musicale » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 6:24 AM UTC

smrtinsert wrote: post #25

What a lazy take. Let's see AI actually own the position reading jiras doing maintenance upgrading debugging deployments. Yes AI will change the jobs. Replace is way to blunt and lazy a term to describe the potential change that is coming.

Beware of what you ask for.

Re: AI Workforce Is Already Coming for Junior Developer Jobs on Wall Street

#35

Post by PeterStuer » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 7:52 AM UTC

merpnderp wrote: post #5

Am I missing some demos of LLM’s producing jr. Dev level work, because from my experience this seems implausible.

It's not that the AI is autonomous as a coder. It's more like a senior dev going without the junior trainy for menial tasks. Both needed supervision and handholding, but one is substantially cheaper.

How this will impact the developer ecosystem remains to be seem.

Re: AI Workforce Is Already Coming for Junior Developer Jobs on Wall Street

#36

Post by LeafItAlone » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 1:58 PM UTC

theGnuMe wrote: post #10

I look forward to a copilot trained on custom code bases to pair program with. Also one that can write test cases and documentation.

> Also one that can write test cases and documentation.

That’s precisely what LLMs have provided amazing value to me for. Though the documentation can’t really know the business-related “why” part, you have to add it in.

Re: AI Workforce Is Already Coming for Junior Developer Jobs on Wall Street

#37

Post by firemelt » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 5:23 PM UTC

SkyPuncher wrote: post #15

guluarte wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is making developers more productive, although I doubt that will cause a shortage in jobs

AI has enabled my team to essentially all become polyglots. It's really amazing to be able to jump between languages, using the best tools for the domain. * JS/TS - FE * Ruby on Rails - Most of our business logic * Python - Doc and LLM specific code * Misc. other languages - niche features that make the most sense in specific languages. ---- Previously, we'd spend a lot of time on dumb little things. Things that you…

any example use case for ruby on rails?

I still can't think the use case of using ai to help me code my ruby on rails project

Re: AI Workforce Is Already Coming for Junior Developer Jobs on Wall Street

#38

Post by grepfru_it » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 7:18 PM UTC

root_axis wrote: post #19

DiscourseFan wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing everything from a terminal is cool and all and makes me feel like a hacker or something, but it's far easier to just click around tbh, and then have the option of using the terminal if I want to.

Of course it's easier, that's why it's the most popular form of computer interface, however what it gains in ease of use it sacrifices in efficiency and precision. Conversely, a CLI is completely opaque to the uninitiated, but it is far more efficient than clicking around an arbitrary sequence of windows/tabs/menus.

To be fair in the early days of NT4 and part of NT5, there was very limited cli support. Especially for management of features such as Active Directory

Re: AI Workforce Is Already Coming for Junior Developer Jobs on Wall Street

#39

Post by mrgoldenbrown » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 1:24 PM UTC

Do any of these articles have details or specific examples? The claimed ease and casualness just don't ring true, and the stories are always via a "friend", or a "CTO I met recently at a conference", or some other anonymous person.