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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

#931

Post by skydhash »

aws_ls wrote: post #904
clktmr wrote: post #902

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You knew exactly what you wanted, since you already built it. All decisions were already made, all tradeoffs reached. LLMs are definitely helpful, but try exploring something new with them and you'll slow down significantly.

Its surprising, how this key insight is lacking, even in the best of developers. It happened fast, as you prompted it just the right way. Another person, who doesn't have all that context in the mind, would fail quickly. For example I have decades of Software experience, but wont know where to even begin what OP did.

Most of my time these days is learning about domains, not technical skills. I keep programming books around for references, but the books I read most are books that go deep into some domain, either technical like operating systems or network, or soft skills like planning, design and communication.

It’s kinda the old saying about $900/hr expert that only taps with an hammer. The price is not about tapping, it’s about knowing where to tap.

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

#932

Post by gilbetron »

Verdex wrote: post #362
zkmon wrote: post #269

> I don't know what to do. Ride the wave. You rode it when websites/webapps were the wave. I came into software industry before internet, kept changing my horse. You are never too old to learn new tricks. The new wave create new kind of work and workers. Be one of them. Ride the beast, master the tools. It's the same game again.

This here. Overall society feels more turbulent, but this is otherwise all the same song and dance all over again. The 90s and 00s had this wave of "object oriented programming changes everything". Hey we're doing this thing that's been done successfully 100s of times before, but now it's OO. Writing some code in involving an airplane? Just purchase this omni-airplane object that does everything for airplanes (an act…

Having lived through all of that as a professional dev, AI is completely different. There was no career anxiety of any significance for OOP or Code Gen (certainly no code gen) or TDD or Agile - there was annoyance at it by some, sure, but not the existential angst the industry is currently experiencing.

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

#933

Post by techblueberry »

worldthruword wrote: post #313
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.

People don't make their own bread. They buy it from an expert. But bread shops are available on every corner. Will software jobs become as common as bread shops? If yes, what happens to the salaries? Something to think about.

Are software jobs less common than bread shops now? By what metric?

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

#934

Post by techblueberry »

HDBaseT wrote: post #758
Yokohiii wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learning a company and it's product is so natural to us that we hardly talk about it. It's a key skill for reliable workers. It's probably impossible for LLMs to learn and apply that wisdom reliably .

Why? Humans learn this information from documentation and being exposed to all the different systems. We know LLMs can ingest documentation like a sponge and access all different internal systems, resources and products via MCP Servers?

> Humans learn this information from documentation and being exposed to all the different systems.

Do you work for the one company with reliable up-to-date documentation? If so you might be biased in your assessment.

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

#935

Post by techblueberry »

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.

I mean, I was able to do all my taxes this year with H&R Block and no AI and no accountant.

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

#936

Post by techblueberry »

SoftTalker wrote: post #274

> I spent 10 years (even more when you account for non-profession experience) getting good at things that are becoming less and less valuable. This is just how it is, and has always been in this industry. And it takes about 10 years to realize it. When I started my career in software, businesses were still writing new code in COBOL. 10 years later those skills were pretty much useless, except for dwindling maintenanc…

What’s interesting is this sort of implies tech skills are inherently the most valuable part. Are they? Tech jobs probably paid the worst when they the most “technical” at the lowest level of abstraction. As they’ve become “easier”. The pay has increased dramatically.

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

#937

Post by lelanthran »

mattbee wrote: post #169
9dev wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I'd still question it. The experience of just… knowing how a good architecture looks like without being able to really put it in words is what makes a good engineer to me. These people can pick up relevant regulations or industry terms and deliver value quickly enough.

How is "without being able to really put it in words" a mark of experience ? Surely an engineer should be able to justify why an architecture should be arranged the way it is!

The justification could be "I've seen this movie before and it doesn't turn out well".

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

#938

Post by cassianoleal »

clapthewind wrote: post #927
cassianoleal wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I suspect you're a junior engineer if you think that way. Domains (any) are deep, and require thorough understanding before you can have business or revenue impact.

I do feel like a junior engineer sometimes. Funnily I didn't as much for the first 15 years or so, but the longer I go and the more clients I work in, the more I feel like it - and I find it refreshing!

I agree that domains are deep but rarely I'll touch all areas of the domain in any given role. As I mentioned in other comments, I don't have to know all of it, as there are other people in the business and likely within my team who:

- probably don't know 100% either; but

- know things that I don't

We work together so as a team we have as broad and deep a domain knowledge we can for the needs of our products and projects.

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

#939

Post by yes1would »

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…

Lmao please do not say you "pilot" what is a glorified ELIZA. You're a joke that people will have forgotten about in 2 years.

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

#940

Post by ethagnawl »

MaKey wrote: post #593
ethagnawl wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's horrible to be a software dev right now, you've to deal with AI and lunatics. Yes, yes, 1000x yes. As a bit of an aside, I have been toying with the idea of adding some sort of second pass/security auditing/scaling offering to my consultancy for people vibe coding projects which wind up generating interest. (Not sure what the fuck else I'm going to do!) I have a few non-technical friends who have found themsel…

> As a bit of an aside, I have been toying with the idea of adding some sort of second pass/security auditing/scaling offering to my consultancy for people vibe coding projects which wind up generating interest. (Not sure what the fuck else I'm going to do!) I have a few non-technical friends who have found themselves in this situation and there's a real need for it. There might be a need for it but as a consultant y…

> There might be a need for it but as a consultant your daily rate should be way above what a small vibe coder is willing to pay.

Yes, I agree and that's part of the tension. I called attention to projects which are actually generating interest because, no, not everybody needs that sort of treatment. People who have real (i.e. not friends/family) users, are storing PII, accepting payments, etc. probably do -- after some threshold has been crossed, though.

> I hope you'll find a way to keep going. Signing up for gig work is a race to the bottom though and not something I'd recommend. May I ask how you've arrived at this point?

Thank you. I sincerely appreciate that. I know Task Rabbit and co. are a race to the bottom but ... I've been burning through savings and need funds to start coming in. There's also an opportunity cost, as that's time I can't spend networking, applying for jobs, writing blog posts, etc. but, again, I can't sustain the burn and don't want to take on more debt. "Gig work" seems simpler than getting hired and put on a schedule somewhere and needing to quit when (hopefully!) I can land some more "real" work.

As for how I got here: Historically, my spouse has had the "safe" job, along with benefits, etc. and I've been the one to freelance/run the consultancy with the healthier rates. (I'm a bit ... neurospicy and can't handle traditional employment, anyways. This also complicates outreach, lead gen, marketing, etc.) For many years, I had a good mix of new/repeat clients through word-of-mouth and was turning down hours. My schedule was also flexible enough that I could be the one deal with getting the kids to/from where they needed to be. Fast-forward a few years and a lot of the work I was doing has either been halted (e.g. due to arts/science funding in the US), brought in-house (e.g. experiential/creative tech) or commoditized by Claude, ChatGPT, etc. (e.g. building CMSs, web services, IAC, AI/ML-ops supporting training/deployment of bespoke LLM/VLMs). I'm now stuck being the one with the flexible schedule, so 9-5 would be really challenging (on a few levels) and my resume isn't getting "through the front door" anywhere, anyways -- despite my experience being strong and varied. So, I've been burning savings while taking on what work I can drum up but it's slowed to basically nothing over the course of the last year.

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