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Why do they want to get rid of software engineers?

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Re: Why do they want to get rid of software engineers?

#31

Post by ekjhgkejhgk »

edgolub wrote: post #15
ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's "we"? I won't stop knowing how to write. If other people do, that's their problem.

The next generation on humans growing up with TikTok autogenerated AI videos written by ChatGPT, generated by Sora and uploaded to the web using OpenClaw or whatever automation tool you wrote using Claude Code. There are literally people running bots creating such shortform videos as we speak. And there are millions of kids (and adults) scrolling those same videos as you reading this. Let that sink in.

> The next generation on humans growing up with TikTok autogenerated AI videos written by ChatGPT

That's other people. I'm not in that cesspol and neither will my children.

Re: Why do they want to get rid of software engineers?

#32

Post by Jtsummers »

deepsun wrote: post #24
ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #7

Software engineers are laborers. If you're a capital owner, a laborer is something that weights down your returns. It's not rocket science.

Counterpoint -- capital owners see SWEs as their asset, and owners do not like to see their assets go away (with intellectual property in their heads). So they nurture and give a lot of freedom to their SWEs. I've seen both ways, and don't share the "capital owners BAD" sentiment. The first thing to join a company is to see whether they assign Eng department to Costs or to Assets mentally.

> Counterpoint -- capital owners see SWEs as their asset, and owners do not like to see their assets go away (with intellectual property in their heads).

The same is true for other knowledge workers, not just programmers. That doesn't mean that if corporate owners and managers had a magic wand that could replicate the worker on demand they wouldn't use it and toss the knowledge worker aside. They would do so happily, especially if it saved them money.

The reason that programmers (few are actually engineers, no reason to bullshit we're among friends and can be honest) have been treated so well is that they were hard to replace. If that barrier gets lifted, or is perceived to have been lifted, they'll get rid of the programmers in a heartbeat.

Re: Why do they want to get rid of software engineers?

#35

Post by ducktastic »

joe_the_user wrote: post #22
ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #7

Software engineers are laborers. If you're a capital owner, a laborer is something that weights down your returns. It's not rocket science.

I agree but I'd also note that a capital owner actually has a couple motivations to get rid of high paid labors. 1) Cost 2) Flexibility. If you can hire random laborers to do most of your tasks, you can quickly scale up whereas if you depend on highly skilled and trained workers, starting a new operation elsewhere is hard. Similar, you can shift activity around, are less impeded by the opinions of workers, etc. Signi…

From what I am seeing in the consulting space for enterprisey companies is that there is an extreme push to normalize /standardize all tools/platforms not even talking about AI tools to be able to replace tribal knowledge with cheaper workers. The narrative and in some cases reality of AI is just bringing the badhavior to the forefront

Re: Why do they want to get rid of software engineers?

#36

Post by ASalazarMX »

paxys wrote: post #29

This reads like a fanfic. "My manager wants to get rid of me because I'm too good with computers and he is jealous." No, he wants to get rid of you because you are an operating expense for the company. If they can achieve the same outcome without paying your salary then why wouldn’t they fire you?

So far they have prevailed despite RADs, 4GLs, no-code solutions, etc. Software engineers have ended up using these new tools to still develop. You can already see developers embracing LLMs to create heaps of trash for fun while they learn to integrate them in their job.

It would take a huge leap forward, if not actual AGI, to fully replace Software Developers. If that's the case, they could replace any human job at any level, not just developers.

Re: Why do they want to get rid of software engineers?

#37

Post by aogaili »

hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #17

I’m honestly at a loss for words at this question. We’re software engineers. Like half of the work we do is try and automate jobs. Are we really confused about why “they” might want to automate our jobs?

We don't just automate jobs, that's a narrow way of looking at it.

We manage complexity.

Re: Why do they want to get rid of software engineers?

#38

Post by colesantiago »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #26
colesantiago wrote: post #5

> Part of this is jealousy (yes, I said it) This feels like cope here. They want to get rid of SWE because they are highly paid (in the US especially) and they want them for cheap (e.g. Bangalore, London) AI just makes it a no brainer. Also I don't think there is anything wrong with everyone being a software engineer, more accessibility to the SWE field for all is great. Current SWE's will just need to now adapt quic…

That's like saying that the chefs who didn't want to adapt when their restaurant became a McDonald's were probably not the good chefs anyway.

Unfortunately you need to get with the times, or get left behind.

Re: Why do they want to get rid of software engineers?

#40

Post by Jtsummers »

moralestapia wrote: post #39

??? Flagged why? I think it was a pretty good article. I don't how this could offend anyone.

I suspect it got flagged by the people who think it was written by an LLM, and the people who thought the "jealousy" argument was particularly weak. It's also a lot of words when the answer is obvious (as pointed out by many commenters here): Money.

Since the development of computers, companies have wanted to save money and that's meant a push to find a magic bullet that can replace many, if not most or all, programmers. Natural language programming, RAD tools, much of the work on fifth-generation languages, was oriented around that objective (removing or reducing the dependence on programmers as a category of professionals, versus domain experts who happen to also program).

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