181–190 of 386 posts
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It’s already happening. Top tier devs have two ways of earning way more than before: 1. They can build and sell their own products or services. We are already seeing 1-2 person software companies earning real money. Top devs don’t have to stay in corporate if they think they can generate more revenue on their own. 2. When companies get rid of their B devs without losing productivity, they can pay their A devs more. I…
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But when I use AI for other problems, such as resolving a weird linux issue, or figuring out why I'm having a particular problem on my network, I find AI is great at surfacing possibilities but it will very quickly go down rabbit holes that end up leading nowhere. If I didn't have enough experience under my belt, I'm not sure I'd realize this when it was happening.
For me, AIs are great enhanced search engines. They make it easier for me to find out what I need to know to deal with a novel problem. But left on their own, they will (confidently) go way too far down dead-end paths.
We have been aggressively and enthusiastically automating away software engineering for the entire history of the computer industry. Every time we do so, we are able to build bigger, better things more quickly. When this happens, our work becomes more valuable and expectations rise to match. The world’s appetite for software has been insatiable so far. AI hasn’t replaced software engineers because every time we becom…
> I don’t see any evidence of this happening, but if somebody wants to make this argument, they should be clear about why this time is different It does seem to be happening - at least in mobile app stores. There's some recent analysis that demonstrates how, despite a huge updraft in the quantity of apps released, the aggregate count of reviews and downloads remains static. In other words, there are now many more app…
Isn't the likely explanation for this that the updraft is a huge number of sloppy AI-generated apps that nobody wants to use because they're just bad?
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I’m not desperate at all. It was my company who was desperate to keep me and gave me a huge pay rise. I was already making top tier money. I threatened to leave to start my own company unless they gave me enough money to make me not want to do it. They did.
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Exactly. I see software engineering going the way of accounting or lawyer. Every business needs an accountant and a lawyer on hand. In the past, hiring one software engineer to build custom software for your small or midsized business was not worth it. What can one software engineer build? Maybe an MVP in a year? No chance it was worth it for the vast majority of businesses. Outside of corporations or tech companies,…
“ However, the top devs will earn more than ever. ” No they won’t. Productivity does not determine the wage rate.
The AI companies will skim all the extra profits.
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I’m not desperate at all. It was my company who was desperate to keep me and gave me a huge pay rise. I was already making top tier money. I threatened to leave to start my own company unless they gave me enough money to make me not want to do it. They did.
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Regardless, I didn't say "many". I said top tier. How you define that is up to you.
There is already ample evidence for top dev talent earning way more than before whether it's through corporate or starting their own company.
We have been aggressively and enthusiastically automating away software engineering for the entire history of the computer industry. Every time we do so, we are able to build bigger, better things more quickly. When this happens, our work becomes more valuable and expectations rise to match. The world’s appetite for software has been insatiable so far. AI hasn’t replaced software engineers because every time we becom…
I think we're not too many years away from the end state of software. We already collectively produce more software than anyone really wants, and the bulk of it is anywhere between garbage and outright fraud, if not actively malicious. The end state, I think, is that everyone who needs small software to manage a todo list or synchronize files, or whatever "normal" people do, will end up with bespoke personalized soft…
For these reasons, I think people are overestimating the end-state impact of AI. Right now the hype cycle is fierce, and it definitely changes the economics of producing software (with a lot of negative effects forcing adjustments in open source ways of working), but I don't think in the end state the core landscape of software changes all that much. Well worn and hardened infrastructure like the Linux kernel is infinitely more valuable than CRUD apps used with small user populations on the edge. User space libraries and frameworks fall somewhere in between. AI increases the volume of new software, yes, but I see it as mostly fractal bits filling in the margins.
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What you're describing is an effect that has always existed. It became clear to me a few decades ago earlier in my career that if a dev's only real skill was "write code" that they were severely limited compared to people who had strong domain knowledge *and* had "write code". The tech boom has made people forget this, but that fact never changed. And now what we're seeing is that the "write code" part is increasingl…
"read code" and "debug code" will still be valuable and one of the ways you learn that is "write code". You might have gotten people who can only write code from cheap contracting places, but the companies choosing to go that route were shooting themselves in the foot with that decision before AI came along. Even from offshore contractors, I still haven't run into anyone who can only write code except for someone jus…
What I am referring to is someone with meaningful knowledge outside of software engineering who can also apply software engineering skills to that domain. In particular I'm referring to domains outside of tech, but any sort of specialized knowledge counts here so even in the "software" world there's things like infosec, networking, etc
Misleading > Among the 270 jobs in the 1950 U.S. census, only one job was automated away — elevator operator. But many others were rendered obsolete by new technology, like the job of telegraph operator. In that same time farm jobs went from 15% of the workforce to 2%.
check Stripe Press latest on indutrial automation: https://press.stripe.com/origins-of-efficiency