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

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

#241

Post by cassianoleal »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #46
cassianoleal wrote: post #15

> The company is now hiring again for a few roles and domain familiarity is not a strong differentiator anymore. We used to list "Software Engineer - Area". Now it's just "Software Engineer" and the team assignment comes after the offer is accepted. > Of course, this is good for brilliant engineers that never had the chance to get deep into the domain and now have better chances at getting a job, but it's also sad to…

>>"Domain knowledge can be learnt much quicker than how to apply good engineering principles." I'm not sure that's universally true. Good software engineers who are arrogant about easily acquired domain knowledge have been the downfall of many an ERP system. There's SO much IT that's literally all about putting business rules into the system.

> Good software engineers who are arrogant about easily acquired domain knowledge

This is a problem of arrogance, not of domain expertise.

Having worked in a few different industries, I'd wager that for the vast majority of them, a competent person can probably learn 80% of the required domain knowledge in under 6 months. For the latter 20%, as long as the person is not arrogant, they will seek help from colleagues who have been around for longer.

On the other hand, solid engineering principles will take 10-15 years of actually experimenting and learning in practice what makes a system resilient and durable.

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

#243

Post by jplusequalt »

weatherlite wrote: post #227
skeledrew wrote: post #192

Yeah the writing is on the wall. Not just for knowledge work, but for jobs in general, as I've been saying in other comments. The era of wage labour, and this dominant economic system, is coming to an end. There's no way it can coexist with AI, but it also needs to continuously push for better AI, which means there's no stopping it. The only thing to do really is brace for the disruption - which will likely be pretty…

I agree but I think it would take awhile. Some of us here seem to believe 2026-2027 is the end of programming jobs. At least that's Amodei seemed to be saying but then changed his mind later on?

Amodei has a track record of saying blatantly false shit in order to drive hype. At this rate, I see him as a snake oils salesman.

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

#244

Post by realusername »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #182
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…

a year ago I would have agreed, but the gap is getting smaller all the time... these things can do 90% of the work, and how many people does a company really need for the remaining 10%? certainly not as many as they needed before

The things can do 90% of the work ... but only if used by the right people.

I've seen first hand what less experienced developers produce using the same models, your 90% accuracy suddenly drops to 50%...

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

#246

Post by cassianoleal »

bob1029 wrote: post #108
cassianoleal wrote: post #15

> The company is now hiring again for a few roles and domain familiarity is not a strong differentiator anymore. We used to list "Software Engineer - Area". Now it's just "Software Engineer" and the team assignment comes after the offer is accepted. > Of course, this is good for brilliant engineers that never had the chance to get deep into the domain and now have better chances at getting a job, but it's also sad to…

> Domain knowledge can be learnt much quicker than how to apply good engineering principles. What kind of domains did you have in mind?

That's a fair question. I suspect highly specialised industries are harder (rocket and space, defense, nuclear, etc), but for things like finance (most of it, anyway) and retail, which IME make the bulk of the tech jobs out there, it's certainly nothing out of this world.

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

#247

Post by 9rx »

an0malous wrote: post #38

There’s one force where software engineering is being automated by LLMs, but the other force is that there isn’t really much more software that needs to be built. Even before AI coding became big, back in 2021, we were already in late stage SaaS territory where each new idea was an increasingly minor variation of an existing idea. There were no new GitHubs, Herokus, Stripes, Salesforces, Instagrams, Reddits, just var…

> there isn’t really much more software that needs to be built

Yup. Most everything we need was already built in the 1970s. Programmers have been kept busy because we've kept introducing incompatibilities into the mix, like DOS programs needing to be rewritten for Windows, and then the web, and then mobile.

And now they're being rewritten for AI platforms. It may be giving the squeeze due to being the first platform that will also help with the rewrite effort, but it is also the thing that kept the industry going. As you point out, there wasn't any work left to do until AI showed up.

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

#249

Post by hammock »

csallen wrote: post #239
deanc wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked on projects in the airline and health industry which are highly regulated too. The regulations can be incredibly difficult to process and implement, and make sure you adhere to everything correctly. I've been involved in multiple scenarios where people have made false assertions about compliance or lack of. I'd still place a bet that the SOA models make _far_ less mistakes than humans.

For some reason, tons of people seem to be in camps at both extremes. It's either "AI sucks don't trust it!" or "AI is so much better than humans!" But the most reasonable take, which I'm happy to see reflected in so many comments in this thread, is… use both. Do an AI pass, and have humans verify, and vice versa. Let the humans drive the AI. Then the unique shortcomings of each party can be covered by the other's st…

AI review is never going to beat a fully resourced human review.

It might beat an underresourced human review, on time, efficiency, cost metrics. But on the metric of accuracy, throwing unlimited humans at a problem will still beat throwing unlimited AI at it

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

#250

Post by jplusequalt »

techblueberry wrote: post #137
juleiie wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds more like a problem of close minded narrow focus on economic output instead of culture, virtue and spiritual traditions. AI is fundamentally an equivalent to slave economy . Cheap, plentiful workforce. This time ethically neutral. You either get Greece or Rome. I’d prefer Greece but it will probably be Rome. From the past we can predict the future.

> That sounds more like a problem of close minded narrow focus on economic output instead of culture, virtue and spiritual traditions. I’m starting to be more sensitive to the argument that without god, people are unable to have a strong moral foundation. Not for the people expressing creativity in how they fuck, but as a check on those in power.

>i’m starting to be more sensitive to the argument that without god, people are unable to have a strong moral foundation. Not for the people expressing creativity in how they fuck, but as a check on those in power.

If this were true, why did the medieval peasant have less rights and autonomy in society than we do now?

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