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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'

#371

Post by lokar »

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)

Just curious, are you mostly FE? I could see this there (but there is still a lot of browser esoteria, etc)

Doing backend and large distributed systems it (seems to me), much deeper. Types of consistency and their tradeoffs in practice, details like implementing and correctly using lamport clocks, good API design, endless details about reworking, on and on.

And then for both, a learned sense of what approaches to system organization will work in the long run (how to avoid needing to stage a re-write every 5 years).

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

#372

Post by tpoacher »

lvspiff wrote: post #333
rsanek wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"without losing face"? What culture are you referring to? The Western companies I have worked at do not discourage such questions -- in fact, it's often the sign of someone very senior when they ask a seemingly 'dumb' question that others have taken for granted.

100% agree and more credit if I could give it! Even as a lead I ask the dumb question when no one else does just because when i can see the look in people faces or realize no one is chiming in the dumb question is needed to ensure everyone drives the point home. I've never been met with any sort of looking down upon nor do i discourage any of my staff - quite the opposite - I champion them for being willing to speak…

in fairness, these do not sound like "dumb" questions.

Some questions really are dumb and bring no value to the table.

The key is knowing which is which, and that is the part that comes with experience.

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

#373

Post by epgui »

alexgotoi wrote: post #192

The thing people miss in these “replace juniors with AI” takes is that juniors were never mainly about cheap hands on keyboards. They’re the only people in the org who are still allowed to ask “dumb” questions without losing face, and those questions are often the only signal you get that your abstractions are nonsense. What AI does is remove a bunch of the humiliating, boring parts of being junior: hunting for the r…

I’m a senior engineer on a staff track, I am proud to ask “dumb” questions all the time, and I don’t want to work somewhere where I don’t feel safe pursuing knowledge openly and candidly.

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

#374

Post by tracker1 »

Rodeoclash wrote: post #332
baxtr wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am bit more senior nowadays. Whenever I don’t understand something I say something like: "Uh, I’m probably the only one here, but I don’t get it…"

I'm the CTO and probably one of the most common things I'll say is "help me understand X"

My favorite CTO/CIO acronym is "PFM". Such as, "and then we run through the PFM process, and it comes out and does..."

PFM - Pure Fucking Magic

I've only once ever had anyone actually ask what it means... essentially it's used as an abstraction for a complex process that would be excessive to explain in context.

I asked, after the meeting.

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

#375

Post by jakub_g »

bespokedevelopr wrote: post #316

Some of my friends who are senior/staff engs at various fang companies are basically convinced their jobs are at risk over the next few years due to how good the llms have gotten this year. I switched over to consulting/contracting so I don’t have the visibility like they do, but my work is heavily dependent on llms. However I don’t see it wiping out the industry but rather making people more efficient. They have muc…

Staff+ work is not that much (exclusively) coding anymore, but identifying correct big things to work on and keeping focus on it, making Bob and Steve from different teams talk to each other instead of building the same stuff twice, making opinionated decisions on things, blocking harmful initiatives, finding elephant in the room and saying things out loud that no one wants to say etc.

It's not really the work that LLMs currently do. I mean sure, maybe if you plug an LLM to read all emails and slacks and zoom transcripts of the entire company, it could do it at some point in the future. But would it have the same amount of influence compared to an industry & company veteran who has the company specific knowledge and experience that is nowhere written down?

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

#376

Post by kelipso »

rsanek wrote: post #226
alexgotoi wrote: post #192

The thing people miss in these “replace juniors with AI” takes is that juniors were never mainly about cheap hands on keyboards. They’re the only people in the org who are still allowed to ask “dumb” questions without losing face, and those questions are often the only signal you get that your abstractions are nonsense. What AI does is remove a bunch of the humiliating, boring parts of being junior: hunting for the r…

"without losing face"? What culture are you referring to? The Western companies I have worked at do not discourage such questions -- in fact, it's often the sign of someone very senior when they ask a seemingly 'dumb' question that others have taken for granted.

I don’t know..this seems like one of those that is admired in HN but I don’t see in any of the multiple US companies that I’ve worked in. People are definitely concerned with looking dumb. “Losing face” may be something people here attribute to Oriental Cultures, but in practice it works similarly here too.

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

#377

Post by 9rx »

dragonwriter wrote: post #368
9rx wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He said juniors are usually the most experienced with AI tools, so cutting them makes no sense. While anyone is free to define words as they so please, most people consider those with the most experience to be seniors. I am pretty sure that has been the message around this all along: Do not cut the seniors. The label you choose isn't significant. Whether you want to call them juniors or seniors, it has always been…

No, he’s saying that juniors, while having less experience ind development in general have more experience with AI tools . (This may be true broadly, certainly less experienced devs generally, IME, seem more enthusiastic about adopting and relying heavily on AI tooling.)

While, again, anyone can define words as they see fit, most people consider the "junior" and "senior" labels to apply to the activity being conducted, not something off to the side. As the job is to use AI tools, these most experienced people would be considered "seniors" by most. Nobody was ever suggesting that you should cut good help because they're juniors in knitting or dirt biking.

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

#378

Post by deadbabe »

bespokedevelopr wrote: post #316

Some of my friends who are senior/staff engs at various fang companies are basically convinced their jobs are at risk over the next few years due to how good the llms have gotten this year. I switched over to consulting/contracting so I don’t have the visibility like they do, but my work is heavily dependent on llms. However I don’t see it wiping out the industry but rather making people more efficient. They have muc…

Computer science isn’t even about code. Finding the most efficient way to pack boxes into a limited space is computer science. Code is the language. Could LLMs solve such real world problems and all their forms? If it’s in their training data, maybe.

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

#379

Post by zingar »

tpoacher wrote: post #366
rsanek wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"without losing face"? What culture are you referring to? The Western companies I have worked at do not discourage such questions -- in fact, it's often the sign of someone very senior when they ask a seemingly 'dumb' question that others have taken for granted.

My cousin, when he got his first job, he managed to wipe the database clean on his first day at work. (classic, I know) The seniors were very understanding, and more importantly it raised important questions about backups, dev vs prod pipelines, etc. But you can bet my cousin was super embarrassed by it, and saving face was a big part of it.

I totally did this! Why would I need a database named “mysql” inside my MySQL database? Delete that, good job on day one!

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

#380

Post by mv4 »

rsanek wrote: post #226
alexgotoi wrote: post #192

The thing people miss in these “replace juniors with AI” takes is that juniors were never mainly about cheap hands on keyboards. They’re the only people in the org who are still allowed to ask “dumb” questions without losing face, and those questions are often the only signal you get that your abstractions are nonsense. What AI does is remove a bunch of the humiliating, boring parts of being junior: hunting for the r…

"without losing face"? What culture are you referring to? The Western companies I have worked at do not discourage such questions -- in fact, it's often the sign of someone very senior when they ask a seemingly 'dumb' question that others have taken for granted.

I found this varies.

Meta? Ask questions anytime.

Amazon? Not so much.

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