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Jobs and Software Is Fucked

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Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#131

Post by aurareturn »

solid_fuel wrote: post #109
aurareturn wrote: post #5

[flagged]

> whatever propaganda is on TV at the moment Stuff does actually happen, out there in the real world. It's OK - even preferable - for people to engage with the world instead of ignoring it. > Maybe the virtue signaling is still strong here and I'll get flagged Having beliefs, a sense of morality, and a personality are actually not virtue signaling. Having a solid and informed perspective on the world is an important…

If I'm a shitty friend, I might give the same advice as what you just said. Just go find a company that is pro-{whatever you're supporting at the moment}.

If I think the problem is my friend, I might tell them what I wrote.

  Having a solid and informed perspective on the world is an important part of being a complete human being.
I agree with this and I'd try to inform my long-term unemployed friend of what employers actually look for in the real world.

  Having beliefs
I don't come across as someone who doesn't have beliefs, right? I have very strong beliefs in general. I also don't think my post says to throw out all your beliefs and values and free thoughts.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#132

Post by shivapb80 »

Ralo wrote: post #85

After 5+ years of actively trying to get into the field (pre AI), I left. I threw my degree in the toilet, I closed my linkedin, and I went to go work in the trades as a diesel mechanic. Greatest choice I've ever made. The pay is great, the work is steady, the coworkers are relaxed and not trying to one up each other. I'm now being paid to go to school, and get raises every year until I'm fully ticketed (way more tha…

that is so inspiring to hear. would you mind answering a couple of questions:

1) How long were you in software? 2) How did you get your break in the trades? Did you go to school etc? 3) Did you have to start on an apprentice program?

Thank you very much

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#133

Post by YuechenLi »

The industry will realize that while getting LLMs to write code is easy, getting LLMs to write good, production ready code is a skill all on its own, which simply must be done by a human and is not automatable to an LLM in any sense effectively. That will be the differentiating factor software engineering in the future, I think.

If I'm being blunt, if you are in the game industry, you probably have nothing to worry about in terms of LLM coding replacing you, because the tooling used in the gaming industry is as unfriendly to LLM coding as it gets: Heavily visual scripting based, extremely reflection heavy, and the code, Unreal C++ and Unity C#, looks like regular C++/C#, but doesn't behave like normal C++/C#. LLMs simply cannot reason about hidden implicit states effectively, so if the code looks right but doesn't act right, LLMs will simply get confused and start hallucinating.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#134

Post by InsideOutSanta »

mynameisbilly wrote: post #112
bayarearefugee wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the vast majority of people who currently have a job in software... you will not have a job in software in the future whether you use AI or not. The tide is coming for almost all of us.

I guess I'm just confused by this sentiment. Are you making these conclusions while considering the fact that AI is still heavily subsidized? The economics of AI isn't quite the same as other software/tech. I don't think it's going anywhere, but I don't know what happens when prices start to rise because these companies need to start turning a profit.

I'm happy using GLM 5.2 at API pricing. There will never be a point where essentially unlimited usage (i.e. what I, as a normal developer, can use at peak effort) of extremely good models will become financially unattainable.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#135

Post by zetsurin »

themgt wrote: post #17

It's not like the job market was that much better before AI infested every single corner of the market, but it supercharged all of the worst aspects of everything. I've seen people supposedly smarter than I advocate for just giving in, conceding to AI coding as it's the future. But doing so means tossing out my friends who make art or the people who work their asses off to properly test and review code or the writers…

>Now, if you're on me and you gotta move when I move, how do you expect to keep a...a tech stack?

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#137

Post by xtracto »

firefoxd wrote: post #28

A month ago, I fell back into reading patio11's "don't call yourself a programmer" and I found it fitting. The core of the message wasn't about the title we assign to ourselves but the "other career advice". I felt compelled to write "don't call yourself a Software engineer" [0], because we are still falling into the same trap of thinking we are hired only for our technical skills. If we are just looking at a skills…

>Engineers in particular are usually very highly paid Cost Centers, which sets MBA’s optimization antennae to twitching. This is what brings us wonderful ideas like outsourcing, which is “Let’s replace really expensive Cost Centers who do some magic which we kinda need but don’t really care about with less expensive Cost Centers in a lower wage country”. (Quick sidenote: You can absolutely ignore outsourcing as a career threat if you read the rest of this guide.) Nobody ever outsources Profit Centers. Attempting to do so would be the setup for MBA humor. It’s like suggesting replacing your source control system with a bunch of copies maintained on floppy disks.

Really good stuff haha.

EDIT: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#138

Post by sublinear »

tern wrote: post #7

Curious about the perspective from anyone who has a skill set / reputation where finding jobs is easy right now. I imagine people in ML or who've found a good way to demonstrate prowess with agentic systems may be highly in demand right now(?)

Easy hires are the same now as in the past. They have held several specialized roles before without letting it narrow their career path, and they have at least a decade of experience.

The problem with specialized roles is that nothing lasts too long in software. Given enough time in it, nobody really has an edge. Everyone is smart enough to have invented and implemented the very thing eating the world right now. They just don't have supervillain money or clout, so they work for you instead.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#139

Post by ItsYan »

firefoxd wrote: post #28

A month ago, I fell back into reading patio11's "don't call yourself a programmer" and I found it fitting. The core of the message wasn't about the title we assign to ourselves but the "other career advice". I felt compelled to write "don't call yourself a Software engineer" [0], because we are still falling into the same trap of thinking we are hired only for our technical skills. If we are just looking at a skills…

I feel like this advice is not very useful because when you call yourself a software engineer or programmer, you are doing it in order to sell a service.

Your customers are companies looking for someone to slot into a box called "software engineer" and so you sell yourself as such. Nothing wrong with that.

We should also note who Patrick was at the time. He was an SEO consultant and in general a business development expert. It just also happened that he was able to code. And he was very very early to the field. An SEO expert was barely a thing.

So if your only skill is software development, then of course you would call yourself that. And if your main skill is SEO or some other marketing channel, then you call yourself that.

I think the real takeaway from the advice "don't call yourself a programmer" is to search the market for higher paid opportunities, where you can still leverage coding. And you can call yourself a programmer while doing so.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#140

Post by pixelatedindex »

Ralo wrote: post #85

After 5+ years of actively trying to get into the field (pre AI), I left. I threw my degree in the toilet, I closed my linkedin, and I went to go work in the trades as a diesel mechanic. Greatest choice I've ever made. The pay is great, the work is steady, the coworkers are relaxed and not trying to one up each other. I'm now being paid to go to school, and get raises every year until I'm fully ticketed (way more tha…

> I closed my linkedin, and I went to go work in the trades as a diesel mechanic.

Love it! A score of years ago, I considered being an auto mechanic after graduating HS but then ended up back in CompSci.

Did you have to go back to school? Did you find a shop that would take you in as an apprentice? And if they did, how did you convince them you can/will be good at the job?

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