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

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

#461

Post by quantadev »

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.

Even since ChatGPT 3.5 AI coding has been astoundingly good. Like you, I'm totally baffled by developers who say it's not. And I'm not just unskilled and unable to judge. I have 35yrs experience! I've been shocked and impressed from day one, how good AI is. I've even seen Github Copilot do thing that almost resemble mind-reading insofar as predicting what I'm about to type next. It predicts some things it should NOT be able to predict unless it's seeing into the future or into parallel universes or something! And I'm only half joking when I speculate that!

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

#462

Post by jayd16 »

munk-a wrote: post #145
IshKebab wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Intellisense style systems were a huge feature leap when they gained wider language support and reliability. LLMs are yet another step forward for intellisense and the effort of comprehending the code you're altering. I don't think I will ever benefit from code generation in a serious setting (it's excellent for prototyping) simply due to the fact that it's solving the easy problem (write some code) while creating a…

> LLMs are yet another step forward for intellisense

That would be great if the reality wasn't that the suggested LLM slop is actually making it harder to get the much better intellisense suggestions of last year.

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

#463

Post by irunmyownemail »

crystal_revenge wrote: post #434
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 “…

> never provide code that pass my sniff test Unfortunately it won't be your sniff test that matters. It's going to be an early founder that realizes they don't need to make that extra seed round hire, or the resource limited director that decides they can forgo that one head count and still deliver the product on time, or the in house team that realizes they no longer need a dedicated front end dev because, for their…

"Personally, the team I lead is able to ship much faster with AI assistants than without, which means in practice we can out compete much larger teams in the same space."

So, you're giving away your company's IP to AI firms, does your CEO understand this?

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

#464

Post by jayd16 »

fragmede wrote: post #391
hnthrowaway6543 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

430 million people currently work in textiles[0]; how big was the industry before mechanical looms? [0] https://www.uniformmarket.com/statistics/global-apparel-indu...

How many worked in America and Western Europe and were paid a living wage in their respective countries, and how many of those 430 million people currently work making textiles in America and Western Europe today, and how many are lower paid positions in poorer countries, under worse living conditions? (Like being locked into the sweatshop, and bathroom breaks being regulated?) Computers aren't going anywhere, so the…

That's a different topic entirely.

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

#465

Post by jayd16 »

pdimitar wrote: post #459
jayd16 wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Other people were wrong about something else so that invalidates your argument" Why are half the replies like this?

The cognitive dissonance of seemingly educated people defending the LLMs when it comes to writing code is my top mystery for the entirety of 2024. Call me if you find a good reason. I still have not.

The short answer is they're trying to sell it.

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

#466

Post by irunmyownemail »

swishman wrote: post #271
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 “…

The arrogance of comments like this is amazing. I think it's an interesting psychological phenomenon similar to virtue signalling. Here you are signalling to the programmer in-group how good of a programmer you are. The more dismissive you are the better you look. Anyone worried about it reveals themself as a bad coder. It's a luxury belief, and the better LLMs get the better you look by dismissing them.

"The arrogance of comments like this is amazing."

Defending AI with passion is nonsensical, at least ironic.

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

#467

Post by rhinoceraptor »

So far LLMs scale the opposite of silicon, instead of exponential gains in efficiency/density/cost, each generation of model takes exponentially more resources.

Also, being a software developer is not primarily writing code, these days it is much more about operating and maintaining production services and long running projects. An LLM can spit out a web app that you think works, but when it goes wrong or you need to do a database migration, you're going to want someone who can actually understand the code and debug the issue.

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

#468

Post by irunmyownemail »

holografix wrote: post #439

Beware of the miopia and gate keeping displayed on this thread. There will be less SWE and DevOps and related jobs available in the next 24 months. Period. Become hyper-aware of how a business measure your value as a SWE. How? Ask pointed, uncomfortable questions that force the people paying you to think and be transparent. Stay on the cutting edge of how to increase your output and quality using AI. Ie: how long doe…

"Stay on the cutting edge of how to increase your output and quality using AI."

If AI (there is no AI, it's ML Machine Learning) were truly as good as the true believers want to see it as; then it could be useful. It isn't.

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

#469

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

RangerScience wrote: post #262
PeterisP wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a LLM (or any other tool) makes so that team of 8 can get the same results in the same time as it used to take a team of 10 to do, then I would count that as "replaced 2 programmers" - even if there's no particular person for which the whole job has been replaced, that's not a meaningful practical difference, replacing a significant fraction of every programmer's job has the same outcomes and impacts as replacing…

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…

The saddle, the stirrup, the horseshoe, the wagon, the plough, and the drawbar all enhanced the productivity of horses and we only ended up employing more of them.

Then the steam engine and internal combustion engine came around and work horses all but disappeared.

There's no economic law that says a new productivity-enhancing programming tool is always a stirrup and never a steam engine.

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

#470

Post by pdimitar »

jayd16 wrote: post #465
pdimitar wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cognitive dissonance of seemingly educated people defending the LLMs when it comes to writing code is my top mystery for the entirety of 2024. Call me if you find a good reason. I still have not.

The short answer is they're trying to sell it.

Agreed, but I can't imagine that everybody here on HN that's defending LLMs so... misguidedly and obviously ignoring observable reality... are financially interested in LLMs' success, can they?
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