LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do • Hacker News Board

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#71

Post by lelanthran » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 1:33 PM UTC

iandanforth wrote: post #18

Wut? I pilot LLMs all day but there's no way in hell I'd agree to be at the helm of a finance product. That first pillar is still there. Maybe the author isn't aware of the impact they have, but I know, with the evidence of reverted PRs, that when I step outside my area of deep knowledge I can no longer call BS on the agents. Our most capable agent, with access to the same kind of distributed systems the author talks…

> Wut? I pilot LLMs all day but there's no way in hell I'd agree to be at the helm of a finance product.

Dunno how much longer that is going to remain true for your specific employer - all the fintech companies I deal with personally have had some sort of AI account for their devs since last year.

Even places like jane street have employees posting blogs (one of which was on HN frontpage about 60m ago) saying they mostly direct agents.

How long do you think your specific employer is going to hold out?

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#72

Post by BirAdam » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 1:33 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #51

keyle wrote: post #34

I sympathise with the author being in the same boat, largely. I just want to emphasise a point... Calculators give 100% correct answers and yet we still hire accountants; for the simple fact that we don't want all to be accountants. People will hire software engineers for the simple fact that they do not want to be software engineers.

funny i was able to do all my taxes this year with ai help and not needing accountant.

Are you in the USA? Brave person if so.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#73

Post by zaphirplane » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 1:33 PM UTC

gdiamos wrote: post #43

What I tell my team to do is to drop using so many cloud saas apps, and build more themselves using LLMs. I’m not planning on firing people, but I am planning on building more, using more tokens, and less app subscriptions. One aspect of building that doesn’t erode is human values. LLMs don’t create software with zero direction and although I do have 12 agents building constantly, I run out of attention to increase t…

How strange or at least unintuitive. Buying should be cheaper than creating for a customer of 1

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#74

Post by iandanforth » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 1:33 PM UTC

keyle wrote: post #28

iandanforth wrote: post #18

Wut? I pilot LLMs all day but there's no way in hell I'd agree to be at the helm of a finance product. That first pillar is still there. Maybe the author isn't aware of the impact they have, but I know, with the evidence of reverted PRs, that when I step outside my area of deep knowledge I can no longer call BS on the agents. Our most capable agent, with access to the same kind of distributed systems the author talks…

[flagged]

"I ended up working in software development roles in the domains of finance, bookkeeping and payment processing, where I had great autonomy and a close and candid relationship with Product Managers and stakeholders.

I learnt a lot about the domain and how to effectively write programs for it: PCI compliance, double-entry ledgers, escrows, reconciliation, payment lifecycles, bank transfer idempotency, etc.

It was, then, obvious that I should focus my career on becoming an expert on that domain to stand out as a professional and differentiate myself in a field that showed signs of an increasing need for domain specialists."

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#75

Post by trilogic » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 1:33 PM UTC

verdverm wrote: post #47

trilogic wrote: post #5

>Of course, I'm still employable because someone has to review the code and steer the robot... We will work for the robots, steering them to steer us.

The saying goes... first we shape our tools, then they shape us We are now manufacturing intelligence (why it's artificial) and it shall be interesting to see how it shapes us individually and as a whole. While marching on May Day, the woman next to me made the comment that Ai will force every human and humanity to reflect on what it means to be human, all of us at the same time over a short time period. What makes a…

Interesting Tony, you seen to have been working for the AI since long time. We others are catching up but eventually all of us will be working for it, as directly or indirectly we are already doing. The "robot" was figurative cause we are no different from a machine, but that is too much for humans to comprehend.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#76

Post by bitmasher9 » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 1:33 PM UTC

mcmcmc wrote: post #36

jmkni wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends what you mean by woodworking I work with a guy who does decking (gardens, caravans, etc) and builds sheds, fences, things like that and he does very well indeed (he's also incredibly good at it to be fair)

Most people would just call that construction

Specifically a carpenter.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#77

Post by viapivov » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 1:34 PM UTC

I wonder how do people use LLMs so it does not hallucinates. Like 90% of the time the code is impeccable, but the remaining 10%... Let's say I determine the expertise by how well do people act of these 10%. For me, the first pillar is still there, but not in a good condition

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#78

Post by vagab0nd » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 1:34 PM UTC

I used to be in the "AI will soon do all your thinking for you" camp, but I was overlooking a scenario: sometimes the gap between what you understand and what you're trying to achieve is so wide that no prompt can bridge it. Simply asking "what's the right question to ask?" doesn't feel enough, no matter how advanced LLMs become.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#79

Post by drsopp » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 1:34 PM UTC

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #3

I think this is the first time I saw someone describe so clearly my concerns and experience with LLMs. I have little to add to it, except that I agree completely. Not sure what’s next

Many people share this sentiment, many people don't.

Who you belong to depend on at least two things: A) How knowledgable is the AI on what you are working on, B) How well do you wield these new tools to work better than before? (Better here can mean many different things).

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#80

Post by lanfeust6 » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 1:35 PM UTC

simon84 wrote: post #62

jalev wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately every software related industry is embracing LLM/Codegen. Your banks, fintechs, insurance. Everyone. Your concerns are the same I'm having, yet it's regularly dismissed or hand-waved away as "don't worry about it the delivery velocity/ROI is worth it"

It's not so much about velocity or quality, both of which LLM do (or will) provide. The real question is about accountability and liability. When a major data leak is going to happen, who will they sue or fire ? That is the value engineers provide. They understand, confirm, and take ownership.

Ostensibly, due-diligence should not change. But people are lazy, just as they've always been around testing/QA/definition-of-done.

I'm not even certain that laziness gets them further along than it used to; I think it's that people have not had their overconfidence painfully corrected yet. Behaviors will re-align pretty fast when people realize that no, they're not going to get away with just pressing a button and saying everything is "good". That is happening right now.