Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 1001 posts

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#331

Post by F-W-M »

pixeltechie wrote: post #280
RangerScience wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fav anecdote from ages ago: When hand-held power tools became a thing, the Hollywood set builder’s union was afraid of this exact same thing - people would be replaced by the tools. Instead, productions built bigger sets (the ceiling was raised) and smaller productions could get in on things (the floor was lowered). I always took that to mean “people aren’t going to spend less to do the job - they’ll just do a bigger…

This is a good example of what could happen to software development as a whole. In my experience large companies tend to more often buy software rather than make it. Ai could drastically change the "make or buy" decision in favour of make. Because you need less developers to create a perfect tailored solution that directly fits the needs of the company. So "make" becomes affordable and more attractive.

I work for a large european power utility. We are moving away from buying to in-house development. LLMs have nothing to do with it.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#333

Post by [deleted] »

rybosworld wrote: post #85
simianparrot wrote: post #80

Nothing because I’m a senior and LLM’s never provide code that pass my sniff test, and it remains a waste of time. I have a job at a place I love and get more people in my direct network and extended contacting me about work than ever before in my 20 year career. And finally I keep myself sharp by always making sure I challenge myself creatively. I’m not afraid to delve into areas to understand them that might look “…

> Nothing because I’m a senior and LLM’s never provide code that pass my sniff test, and it remains a waste of time. I am constantly surprised how prevalent this attitude is. ChatGPT was only just released in 2022. Is there some expectation that these things won't improve? > LLM’s never provide code that pass my sniff test This is ego speaking.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#334

Post by goalonetwo »

rybosworld wrote: post #85
simianparrot wrote: post #80

Nothing because I’m a senior and LLM’s never provide code that pass my sniff test, and it remains a waste of time. I have a job at a place I love and get more people in my direct network and extended contacting me about work than ever before in my 20 year career. And finally I keep myself sharp by always making sure I challenge myself creatively. I’m not afraid to delve into areas to understand them that might look “…

> Nothing because I’m a senior and LLM’s never provide code that pass my sniff test, and it remains a waste of time. I am constantly surprised how prevalent this attitude is. ChatGPT was only just released in 2022. Is there some expectation that these things won't improve? > LLM’s never provide code that pass my sniff test This is ego speaking.

100% and even if they might not "replace" a senior or staff SWE, they can make their job significantly easier which means that instead of requiring 5 Senior or Staff you will only need two.

LLM WILL change the job market dynamics in the coming years. Engineers have been vastly overpaid over the last 10 years. There is no reason to not see a reversal to the mean here. Getting a 500k offer from a FAANG because you studied leetcode for a couple weeks is not going to fly anymore.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#335

Post by [deleted] »

simianparrot wrote: post #80

Nothing because I’m a senior and LLM’s never provide code that pass my sniff test, and it remains a waste of time. I have a job at a place I love and get more people in my direct network and extended contacting me about work than ever before in my 20 year career. And finally I keep myself sharp by always making sure I challenge myself creatively. I’m not afraid to delve into areas to understand them that might look “…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#336

Post by light_triad »

dkyc wrote: post #185
light_triad wrote: post #183

There's a great Joel Spolsky post about developers starting businesses and realising that there's a bunch of "business stuff" that was abstracted away at big companies. [1] One way to future proof is to look at the larger picture, the same way that coding can't be reduced to algorithm puzzles: "Software is a conversation, between the software developer and the user. But for that conversation to happen requires a lot…

But conversations are exactly LLMs strength?

True but I think Spolsky meant it more as a metaphor for understanding users' psychology. Knowledge workers need empathy and creativity to solve important problems.

And design, product intuition, contextual knowledge in addition to the marketing, sales, accounting, support and infrastructure required to sell software at scale.

LLMs can help but it remains to be seen how much they can create outside of the scope of the data they were trained on.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#337

Post by rozap »

IshKebab wrote: post #98
rybosworld wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing because I’m a senior and LLM’s never provide code that pass my sniff test, and it remains a waste of time. I am constantly surprised how prevalent this attitude is. ChatGPT was only just released in 2022. Is there some expectation that these things won't improve? > LLM’s never provide code that pass my sniff test This is ego speaking.

> Is there some expectation that these things won't improve? I definitely expect them to improve. But I also think the point at which they can actually replace a senior programmer is pretty much the exact point at which they can replace any knowledge worker, at which point western society (possibly all society) is in way deeper shit than just me being out of a job. > This is ego speaking. It definitely isn't. LLMs ar…

> I definitely expect them to improve. But I also think the point at which they can actually replace a senior programmer is pretty much the exact point at which they can replace any knowledge worker, at which point western society (possibly all society) is in way deeper shit than just me being out of a job.

Agree with this take. I think the probability that this happens within my next 20 years of work is very low, but are non-zero. I do cultivate skills that are a hedge against this, and if time moves on and the probability of this scenario seems to get larger and larger, I'll work harder on those skills. Things like fixing cars, welding, fabrication, growing potatoes, etc (which I already enjoy as hobbies). As you said, skills that are helpful if shit were to really hit the fan.

I think there are other "knowledge workers" that will get replaced before that point though, and society will go through some sort of upheaval as this happens. My guess is that capital will get even more consolidated, which is sort of unpleasant to think about.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#338

Post by rybosworld »

surgical_fire wrote: post #305
rybosworld wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there any expectations that things will? Seems like an odd question. The answer is obviously yes: There is a very pervasive expectation that LLM's will continue to improve, and it seems odd to suggest otherwise. There is hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on AI training and that number is increasing each year. > Is there more untapped great quality data that LLMs can ingest? Why wouldn't there be? AI's…

> The answer is obviously yes: There is a very pervasive expectation that LLM's will continue to improve, and it seems odd to suggest otherwise. There is hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on AI training and that number is increasing each year. That makes an assumption that throwing dollars on AI training is a surefire way to solve the many shortcomings of LLMs. It is a very optimistic assumption. > Why woul…

> That makes an assumption that throwing dollars on AI training is a surefire way to solve the many shortcomings of LLMs. It is a very optimistic assumption.

That's not an assumption that I am personally making. That's what experts in the field believe.

> "The Internet" basically encompasses all meaningful sources of data available, especially if we are talking specifically about software development. But even beyond that, it is very unclear what other high quality data it would consume that would improve the things.

How about, interacting with the world?

> I love how you conveniently sidestepped the part where I ask if it would improve the pervasive issue of generating plausibly sounding bullshit.

I was not trying to "conveniently sidestep". To me, that reads like a more emotional wording of the first question you asked, which is if LLM's are expected to improve. To that question I answered yes.

> The assumption that generative AI will improve is as valid as the assumption that it will plateau.

It is certainly not as valid to say that generative AI will plateau. This is comparable to saying that the odds of winning any bet are 50/50, because you either win or lose. Probabilities are a thing. And the probability that the trend will plateau is lower than not.

> It is quite possible that what we are seeing is "as good as it gets", and some major breakthrough, that may or may not happen on our lifetime, is needed.

It's also possible that dolphins are sentient aliens sent here to watch over us.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#339

Post by forgetfreeman »

I bailed out of the industry entirely. Having fallen back on basic tool use skills I picked up during my 20s spent bouncing around in the trades I'm feeling pretty comfortable that AI doesn't pose a meaningful threat to my livelihood.

Re: Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?

#340

Post by rybosworld »

raincole wrote: post #320
rybosworld wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is spot on. It's essentially like saying "What I do in particular, is much too difficult for an AI to ever replicate." It is always in part, humble bragging. I think some developers like to pretend that they are exclusively solving problems that have never been solved before. Which sure, the LLM architecture in particular might never be better than a person for the novel class of problem. But the reality is, an…

How is it humble bragging when there isn't "humble" part?

Fair point
Post reply on HN