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AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

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Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#111

Post by gnerd00 »

nateglims wrote: post #83
gnerd00 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

first response from me "let me mention how the real business world actually works" .. let's add a more nuanced slice to that however Since desktop computers became popular, there have been thousands of small to mid-size companies that could benefit from software systems.. A thousand thousand "consultants" marched off to their nearest accountant, retailer, small manufacturer or attorney office, to show off the new des…

I'm a little confused by this analysis. Are you saying that all enterprise software has been replaced with MS word and AWS?

certainly no -- not "all software" of anything. Where is the word "enterprise" in the post you have replied to ? "enterprise" means the very largest companies and institutions..

I did not write "all software" or "enterprise software" but you are surprised I said that... hmmm

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#112

Post by tastyfreeze »

simonw wrote: post #13
tastyfreeze wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously after 10-15 years of experience working as a developer AI will be a senior dev. Probably will get promoted to management with all that experience.

Promoting your best engineers to management sometimes gets you a great manager, but often gets you a mediocre or just-about-competent manager at the cost of a great engineer. I'm a big fan of the "staff engineer" track as a way to avoid this problem. Your 10-15 year engineers who don't vibe with management should be able to continue earning managerial salaries and having the biggest impact possible. https://staffeng.…

Absolutely agree. Regardless, my org keeps trying to get me to take a management role after 15 years dev experience. I love my job and don't like managing people. You couldn't pay me enough to become a manager.

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#113

Post by repler »

bgwalter wrote: post #89
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Beck

So? His bio is literally one latest fad after the other. Now he joins the "AI" fad, what a surprise.

That is a very cynical take which completely ignores his contributions through the decades.

In many cases he helped build the bandwagons you're implying he simply jumped onto.

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#114

Post by avgDev »

mjr00 wrote: post #33
frostiness wrote: post #17

I can't help but feel this is backpedaling after the AI hype led to people entering university avoiding computer science or those already in changing their major. Ultimately we might end up with a shortage of developers again, which would be amusing.

I went to university 2005-2008 and I was advised by many people at the time to not go into computer science. The reasoning was that outsourced software developers in low-cost regions like India and SEA would destroy salaries, and software developers should not expect to make more than $50k/year due to the competition. Even more recently we had this with radiologists, a profession that was supposed to be crushed by de…

I went for CS in my late 20s, always tinkered with computers but didn't get into programming earlier. College advisor told me the same thing, and that he went for CS and it was worthless. This was 2012.

I had a job lined up before graduating. Now make high salary for the area, work remotely 98% of the time and have flexible schedule. I'm so glad I didn't listen to that guy.

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#115

Post by ravenstine »

frostiness wrote: post #17

I can't help but feel this is backpedaling after the AI hype led to people entering university avoiding computer science or those already in changing their major. Ultimately we might end up with a shortage of developers again, which would be amusing.

Can anyone really blame the students? If I were in their shoes, I probably wouldn't bother studying CS right now. From their perspective, it doesn't really matter whether AI is bullshit in any capacity; it matters whether businesses who are buying the AI hype are going to hire you or not.

Hell, I should probably be studying how to be a carpenter given the level at which companies are pushing vibe coding on their engineers.

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#116

Post by exasperaited »

repler wrote: post #113
bgwalter wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? His bio is literally one latest fad after the other. Now he joins the "AI" fad, what a surprise.

That is a very cynical take which completely ignores his contributions through the decades. In many cases he helped build the bandwagons you're implying he simply jumped onto.

> In many cases he helped build the bandwagons you're implying he simply jumped onto.

The fact that I cannot tell if you mean this satirically or not (though I want to believe you do!) is alarming to me.

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#117

Post by ekkeke »

bdangubic wrote: post #87
lokar wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For an experienced engineer, working out the syntax, APIs, type issues, understanding errors, etc is the easy part of the job. Larger picture issues are the real task. But for many Jr engineers it’s the hard part. They are not (yet) expected to be responsible for the larger issues.

what is a larger issue ? lacking domain knowledge? or lacking deeper understanding of years of shit in the codebase that seniors may have better understanding? where I work, there is no issue that it "too large" for a junior to take on, it is the only way that "junior" becomes "non-junior" - by doing, not by delegating to so-called seniors (I am one of them)

You can't give a junior tasks that require experience and nuance that have been acquired over years of development. If you babysit them, then perhaps but then what is the point? By it's nature "nuance" is something hard to describe concretely but as someone who has mentored a fair few juniors most of them don't have it. AI generally doesn't have it either. Juniors need tasks at the boundary of their capability, but not far beyond to be able to progress. Simply allowing them to make a mess of a difficult project is not a good way to get there.

There is such a thing as software engineering skill and it is not domain knowledge, nor knowledge of a specific codebase. It is good taste, an abstract ability to create/identify good solutions to a difficult problem.

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#118

Post by PartiallyTyped »

epolanski wrote: post #96

My experience is that juniors have an easier time to ramp up, but never get better at proper engineering (analysis) and development processes (debug). They also struggle to read and review code. I fear that unless you heavily invest in them and follow them, they might be condemned to have decades of junior experience.

I have the same experience.

In my view there's two parts to learning, creation and taste, and both need to be balanced to make progress. Creation is, in essence, the process of forming pathways that enable you to do things, developing taste is the process of pruning and refining pathways to doing things better.

You can't become a chef without cooking, and you can't become a great one without cultivating a taste (pun intended) for what works and what it means for something to be good.

From interactions with our interns and new-grads, they lack the taste, and rely too much on the AI for generation. The consequence is that when you have conversations with them, they straggle to understand the concepts and tools they are using because they lack the familiarity that comes with creation, and they lack the skills to refine the produced code into something good.

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#119

Post by School-Cotton »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #66
bgwalter wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would a person who describes himself as a "full time content producer" know what is actually going on in the industry? https://substack.com/@kentbeck What software projects is he actively working on?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Beck

Doesn't this back up the point? From his wiki it seems like he is mostly famous as a programming influencer, not as a programmer.

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#120

Post by bluGill »

orliesaurus wrote: post #44
orliesaurus wrote: post #37

Interesting take... I'm seeing a pattern... People think AI can do it all... BUT I see juniors often are the ones who actually understand AI tools better than seniors... That's what AWS CEO points out... He said juniors are usually the most experienced with AI tools, so cutting them makes no sense... He also mentioned they are usually the least expensive, so there's little cost saving... AND he warned that without a…

ON TOP OF IT ALL, juniors are the ones who bring novel tools to the desk MOST times...i.e. I had no clue the Google IDE gave you free unlimited credits despite the terrible UI...but a young engineer told me about it!!

I've seen seniors and juniors bring novel tools in. Seniors do it less often perhaps - but only because we have seen this before under a different name and realize it isn't novel. (sometimes the time has finally come, sometimes it fail again for the same reason it failed last time)
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