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Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

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Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#251

Post by JohnMakin »

sibeliuss wrote: post #201
JohnMakin wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely more charitable, but isn't this already the case now? It seems he's saying past your mid 30's you'd no longer be viable as a software engineer. That's never been the case, and I'm not sure why it would now suddenly be the case.

Even clearer, if you don't adapt to the changes taking place in the field there might not be a future for you. Its not about age, it is about attitude and flexibility (which are, admittedly, issues when getting older). In other words, if you want to continue stubbornly typing out code by hand, the person right over there has already mastered agentic tooling and is doing vastly more than you, more quickly, and with gr…

I see what you're getting at, but if it's not about age, why use an age related analogy? I probably should have amended my first statement in this thread is that it sounds ageist, if even implying that the people who will refuse to adapt will be older. This day is already here, people are already adapting to this. He seemed to frame it as the current young 20's career people will have this limited timeframe of productivity.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#252

Post by hnthrowaway0315 »

senko wrote: post #242
hnthrowaway0315 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are lucky and got in early, then probably yes, it could be a lifetime career. It's like all careers, when you joined early, you got a lot of opportunities, you also rode the wave, you eventually rose to the top if you grit through. It's a lot easier to be early than to be smart or quick.

If you're on the top, you probably aren't coding much. So you're more in management than getting your hands dirty.

Yeah, but you still have the choice to stay in the trench. People like Carmack/Cutler do that. But I agree the majority just go high management.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#253

Post by hjort-e »

geodel wrote: post #156
KronisLV wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, about 2-5% of the time. There are also those for whom that percentage is higher, let’s say 6-50%. > I understand things and then apply my ability to formulate solutions The AI is coming for that too. You might just be lucky to be in circumstances that value your contributions or an industry or domain that isn’t well represented in the training data, or problem spaces too complex for AI. Not everyone is, not ev…

Agree. It is just like 2 totally separate groups are arguing. One very tiny slice of speciality/ rare industries where code is critical but overall small part of project costs. I can see if code / software is 5% of overall cost even heavy use of AI for code part is not moving the needle. So people in this group can feel confident in their indispensability. Second group is much larger and peddling CRUD / JS Frontends…

What makes you feel that a complex frontend would be easier for AI than a non-CRUD backend system?

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#255

Post by bel8 »

hibikir wrote: post #237

In my experience, it's been the complete opposite. The very experienced engineers that are actually willing to use top of the line tooling are much better than they were before, including those that are over 40, and over 50. Part of the practical degradation of traditional programmers over time has always been concentration and deep calculation, just like in chess. The old chess player knows chess much better than a…

But when a senior can do the job of 6 coworkers, what do you suppose will happen to the coworkers?

In farming, those who were replaced by tractors did not keep their jobs. What is different now?

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#256

Post by strbean »

hateful wrote: post #135
bborud wrote: post #67

Multiple times per week I have the same conversation. It goes something like this: - AI will make developers irrelevant - Why? - Because LLMs can write code - Do you know what I do for a living? - Yes, write code? - Yes, about 2-5% of the time. Less now. - But you said you are a developer? - I did - So what do you do 95-98% of the time? - I understand things and then apply my ability to formulate solutions - But I ca…

Not sure where I first heard this, but I say it to my team all the time: "Programming is thinking, not typing"

I know a an accomplished CS professor, ACM fellow, cited in Knuth's TAOCP (as well as being an easter egg!), who still hunt-and-pecks. In fact, hunt-an-pecks incredibly slowly.

Seeing him type really reinforced this idea.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#257

Post by bborud »

doug_durham wrote: post #184
bborud wrote: post #67

Multiple times per week I have the same conversation. It goes something like this: - AI will make developers irrelevant - Why? - Because LLMs can write code - Do you know what I do for a living? - Yes, write code? - Yes, about 2-5% of the time. Less now. - But you said you are a developer? - I did - So what do you do 95-98% of the time? - I understand things and then apply my ability to formulate solutions - But I ca…

This is a bit of glib answer. Most of the time is spent coding which encompasses typing, retyping, and retyping again. It also includes banging your head against the wall while trying to get one of your rewrites to work against and under-documented API. OP's formulation makes SWE sound like a purely noble enterprise like mathematics. It's more like an oil rig worker banging on pieces of metal with large hammers to ge…

Are you, perchance, assuming that since you spend most of your time struggling with actual code, this is so for everyone else?

Or are you saying that I'm lying. That I am secretly hammering away at my keyboard while pretending not to?

No, writing code hasn't been how I spend most of my time for many decades now.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#258

Post by hyperjeff »

bborud wrote: post #67

Multiple times per week I have the same conversation. It goes something like this: - AI will make developers irrelevant - Why? - Because LLMs can write code - Do you know what I do for a living? - Yes, write code? - Yes, about 2-5% of the time. Less now. - But you said you are a developer? - I did - So what do you do 95-98% of the time? - I understand things and then apply my ability to formulate solutions - But I ca…

You’re a ”developer“, i guess, but not a coder (anymore), which is what your interlocutors are probably asking about. You’ve migrated to a middle manager job, not something they probably can just start doing competently. Essentially you’re agreeing with their initial sentiment, that coders will be made irrelevant.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#259

Post by mythrwy »

coolThingsFirst wrote: post #84

It never was a lifetime career, if you don't get the dough by 35 you just failed.

I started at age 39 though and did pretty well up until a year or two ago (16 years total).

Like many people I've been sad about the loss of a career I spent years developing skills in and I'm 55 now and won't be quickly retraining for another high paying career. Fortunately I do have other skills I developed earlier in life and low needs so will probably limp by fine but it's still a painful adjustment.

Point being, you could always write code as an older person. Well, back in the old days when we wrote code anyway.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#260

Post by itsafarqueue »

tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #248
KronisLV wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, about 2-5% of the time. There are also those for whom that percentage is higher, let’s say 6-50%. > I understand things and then apply my ability to formulate solutions The AI is coming for that too. You might just be lucky to be in circumstances that value your contributions or an industry or domain that isn’t well represented in the training data, or problem spaces too complex for AI. Not everyone is, not ev…

>> I understand things and then apply my ability to formulate solutions > The AI is coming for that too. If this is true, then you'd have to conclude that AI is coming for everything . I'm still not convinced by that. But I am convinced that the part of software development that involves typing code manually into an IDE all day is likely gone forever.

> If this is true, then you'd have to conclude that AI is coming for everything.

Now you’re getting it

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