I don't know. Why are you software engineers always trying to replace everyone else?
Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?
21–30 of 145 posts
Re: Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?
#22Because: 1) We're expensive (at least for Poland, I can aim for ~6-8k PLN monthly after few years of experience. Other, even civil/mech engineers will have around 4-6k monthly with similar experience) [edit: and minimal wage is 3.5k after taxes] 2) It appears to be replaceable (you can replace us with LLMs to an extent, you can't do that with other jobs)
This.
It's not software engineers per se. It's any labor component that is expensive and "automate"-able. Companies are always trying to optimize labor costs. The theoretical Holy Grail is a company that requires 0 labor input where all profits accrue to the owner of the business.
That's just business 101.
I'd anticipate a concerted effort to make LLMs better and batter at software development tasks until you only need the top 0.5% of developers and maybe a few technicians to support them. That's how you juice profitability.
Re: Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?
#23This is either delusional, or trying to sell a course. That aside, it's interesting that software engineering will probably be among the first to be destroyed by ASI. This is simply because it's easy to do reinforcement learning on.
Just like robotic cars, the first 90% of the effort will come easy and the remaining 10% will take decades to perfect. They're going to need AGI to fully replace the intuition and knowledge integration of a dev.
Re: Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?
#24[dead]
Re: Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?
#25> Your job was never to write code, it is to solve problems for your users. They are why we have a job. You need to talk with the users, empathize with them, understand their problems and feel their pains. This is much too important to be left exclusively in the hands of product managers and designers. You are the problem solver, so you need to fully understand the problem. Adding to this point, LLMs won't fully unde…
I've honestly never had that success. LLMs for me more often get in the way than actually help anything. It may be that it's because I deal mostly in very large code bases with their own nuances.
Re: Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?
#26You need strong guys to move things around because you don't have a pneumatic crane.
Now you have pneumatic crane, you can move stacks and stacks of things around with ease. You need less strong guys around and instead there is a new need for fewer people that are well-trained on how to operate this pneumatic crane safely. You'll get more work done with less people.
That's what's happening with software engineering and LLM copilots; it's an industrialization of coding. You don't need 20 engineers to get that product out. You need a few that are really good operators of the machinery. Adept at prompting and reviewing code instead of writing code.
Re: Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?
#27Software developers are basically the only thing standing between the morons and profit at any cost to society, because some of us don't feel like playing that game and they couldn't do it without us if their life depended on it.
I realize they think they they finally can do it by themselves, or rather by hooking up a bunch of fresh bootcamp devs with AI; and I look forward to watching them crash, burn and come back begging for help.
Re: Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?
#28its completely over for this field. anyone that doesnt think so has their head in the sand, we are 18 months out from the value proposition of a 50-85th percentile software engineer dropping to the floor
Code monkeys can essentially be replaced by GenAI (that is, a competent SWE team needs fewer or zero low-skill code monkeys going forward) but the "field" goes way beyond code monkeys.
Replacing piles of expensive crappy SaaS with a small team of expert SWE will continue to be a massive arbitrage opportunity for many mid/large orgs.
Re: Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?
#29Software Engineers build the tools, so I feel it shouldn't be surprising that one of the first areas it's being applied is the domain it's inventors are most familiar with.
Re: Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?
#30> Scientist: Hurrah! We have created an algorithm that can mimic human speech!
> CEO: Fantastic! I've already fired all of the doctors and nurses, how soon can it start doing surgeries?
> Scientist: ...