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Do I belong in tech anymore?

ky.fyi

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Re: Do I belong in tech anymore?

#111

Post by tempodox »

Griffinsauce wrote: post #71
dgb23 wrote: post #42

> The point of a code review is not simply for good code to make it into a codebase, but to build institutional knowledge as people debate and iterate and compromise, slow as it may be. I feel like this is a very profound insight. Of course processes like this can become about the immediate utility. Reviewing is then checking work so, it can be merged and used. But the process is more about us than the code. And we l…

There's a Dutch idiom: no shine without friction. AI is all about losing every possible bit of friction, severely underestimating the value that friction brings.

It’s almost as though some people fall over themselves trying to achieve maximum possible speed without giving any thought to where they want to be heading.

Re: Do I belong in tech anymore?

#112

Post by baxtr »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #102
baxtr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough :) wasn’t clear to me from your first comment. It’s definitely pretty tough out there right now.

It was completely clear from the first comment, which is why yours was so clearly unhelpful.

Yes absolutely. It’s even scientifically proven to be helpful advice.

Look up the work by Seligman et al. on resilience.

Re: Do I belong in tech anymore?

#113

Post by baxtr »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #101
baxtr wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes exactly. I stand by that advice. What’s the alternative? Do nothing?

So you advise that they do not need to change their approach at all, since they’re already doing something: posting on hacker news.

Ok, so comments like this are helpful then?

Re: Do I belong in tech anymore?

#114

Post by OutOfHere »

attendant3446 wrote: post #110

I'm going through something similar. All the symptoms described in the article are present in the company where I work. But I don't blame AI. AI is just a tool. I blame the company culture, because it's the source of those problems.

Exactly, although it increasingly is the default culture at too many companies. As you noted, AI is not the problem here. Clueless VCs encourage clueless bosses to encourage clueless engineers to produce buggy garbage that lives long enough to pass the buck to the next clueless VC. No human in this chain cares about the virtues of good engineering. It is a grift all around, and grift ultimately results in systemic doom.

Re: Do I belong in tech anymore?

#116

Post by idiotsecant »

Paul-Craft wrote: post #59
idiotsecant wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The era of anyone interested in programming for fun being able to make upper 10% incomes is drawing to a close. You'll unfortunately have to join the rest of us who work for money and program for fun. I suggest engineering (the real kind, not software 'engineering')

Unfortunately, I have a visual-spatial processing disability. You don't want me near anything mechanical, and I can't do visualization-based tasks because I literally can't visualize. That eliminates most engineering jobs. There's also the matter of going back to school, and the associated debt I'd have to take. I'd never be able to pay the loans off if I did that.

Electrical engineering doesn't need much in the way of mechanical aptitude, has a substantial overlap with what you already know depending on specialization, and might not have as much new schooling required as you would think.

Something like industrial controls engineering might be right up your alley.

Re: Do I belong in tech anymore?

#117

Post by Henchman21 »

tempodox wrote: post #111
Griffinsauce wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a Dutch idiom: no shine without friction. AI is all about losing every possible bit of friction, severely underestimating the value that friction brings.

It’s almost as though some people fall over themselves trying to achieve maximum possible speed without giving any thought to where they want to be heading.

It boils down to "Can we? vs. Should we?"

People in tech seem to almost NEVER consider "Should we?"

Re: Do I belong in tech anymore?

#118

Post by Henchman21 »

ffsm8 wrote: post #78
dgb23 wrote: post #42

> The point of a code review is not simply for good code to make it into a codebase, but to build institutional knowledge as people debate and iterate and compromise, slow as it may be. I feel like this is a very profound insight. Of course processes like this can become about the immediate utility. Reviewing is then checking work so, it can be merged and used. But the process is more about us than the code. And we l…

It shows that previously he likely worked only at companies which catered to him, honestly. That was pretty widespread during 2005-2015, but it's been dropping extremely quickly now. Developers are generally seen as replaceable cogs. Middle management loves to talk about "scaling" - by which they don't mean scaling how devs understand it, but instead multiplying headcount - because surely throwing x-n devs at the sam…

For fucks' sake. Has no one read:

Brooks, Frederick P., Jr., 1931-2022. The Mythical Man-Month : Essays on Software Engineering. Reading, Mass. :Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1982.

Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it?

Re: Do I belong in tech anymore?

#119

Post by ej88 »

maplethorpe wrote: post #65
ej88 wrote: post #49

"The psychic toll of AI" -- It's sad, but each of these scenarios (barring the AI notetaker, which I haven't found to be an issue personally but ymmv) are indicative more of the culture of the company than the tool itself. From my experience it seems like the most frontier companies have the best AI-use culture. I work at a very 'AI-pilled' company, but: - Everyone reads and reviews every PR and leaves human comments…

Are there any companies that aren't AI-pilled at this point?

most are not, e.g. if your company has any of these you're probably not ai pilled

- mandatory ai usage

- ai usage tied to kpis or performance reviews

- trainings on how to use claude code

- restrictions on what tools you can use

- layoffs

- engineers still typing every line of code by hand

Re: Do I belong in tech anymore?

#120

Post by lordkrandel »

manytimesaway wrote: post #106
lordkrandel wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Odoo, Belgium, cloud ERP. Not very AI pilled, even if AI is considered and used somehow

Odoo suffers from others issues though. Not sure if this is still the case, but the mix of inline Python 2 Flask + XML was basically tech debt-as-a-service. Also the very ugly death they gave OpenERP/Odoo on-premise.

It's Python 3, no Flask (but werkzeug) and XML templates. It works for hundred thkusand clients, and you can install Odoo on premise as you like. I'm 90% dedicated to that. So... explain the "tech debt" thing, as I don't get it. You don't need Rust or microservices for every use case. Don't be fooled by marketing style "old style technology" bias and set up an account. PostgreSQL with synchronous workers works perfectly for most people.
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