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Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

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Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#621

Post by hatthew »

PizzaBorsch wrote: post #355
hatthew wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In no particular order - Meetings - Reading papers - Understanding legacy code - Reading internal news - Ad hoc chats with coworkers - Writing docs - Editing configs - Thinking about solutions - Slacking off - Analyzing results - Testing code - Reviewing PRs - Understanding others' ongoing projects

AI can do everything you listed except chats with coworkers and slacking off. I just don't think you've utilized the most recent versions of codex or claude.

It's definitely theoretically possible, but not there yet. I use cursor, claude (opus 4.7), and several proprietary LLMs/LLM frameworks at my job. The institutional knowledge I have wouldn't fit in the context window, and AIs lack my mental index/intuition of where to look for answers. When my AI makes a PR, I generally have to make some important changes, without which it's solution would be fundamentally broken. AI also cannot be trusted to make the right business tradeoff decisions.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#622

Post by i_love_retros »

adjejmxbdjdn wrote: post #49
harimau777 wrote: post #20

I keep reading about how AI will be fine because people can just retrain for different careers. However, I never read what those careers are or who is going to pay for retraining. I certainly don't have the money or time to go back to college and start a new career at the bottom.

The argument is that “that’s what always happened in the past”. Which is true, but it’s true as long as it’s not true. The classic example of how drastically this kind of thinking can fail is Malthusian theory, that populations would collapse because food growth was linear while population growth was exponential. This was true for all of history until Malthus actually made this observation. At a mechanistic level, th…

At some point there really won't be enough jobs and massive social change will happen. It has to surely? Don't call me Shirley. In star trek WW3 had to happen before the better society emerged. I think a large scale wipe out and cleaning of the slate is inevitable. What happens in a world where people who have spent so much time and effort and money to get educated and establish a career are suddenly worthless and penniless? Nothing good I suspect!

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#623

Post by timacles »

BurningFrog wrote: post #195
LPisGood wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The AI is coming for that too. That may be true I’m not gonna say one way or the other, but if AI comes for that then almost all knowledge work is effectively dead, so all that’s left would be sales or physical labor.

The history of the last 250 years is inventing new professions as old ones are automated away. I expect that to continue.

This is the kind of sleep walking that’s about to walk humanity into the next dark ages.

My parents say a lot of stuff like this. They tend to gloss over the untold suffering, great depressions and world wars that took us to get here.

The planets resources were also not in risk of running out. As the world is min maxed by billionaires, it nice the lower classes are drained of all capital, they will soon move to fighting each other for resources. the future is looking pretty grim for even the most optimistic of scenarios

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#624

Post by mancerayder »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #407
mancerayder wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a lot of SV-speak. How exactly do people step into an entrepreneurial phase? They're at work in corporate settings with fixed defined roles. Most workplaces are not many-hatted-donning startup environments, but restricted roles where there are deliverables, deadlines, meetings, etc. Which leaves out of hours for "entrepreneurship" whatever that is. Github project work on the weekends? That's not possible for m…

>That's a lot of SV-speak. How exactly do people step into an entrepreneurial phase? Almost half of U.S. employment is from small businesses (250 or less employees). That's means there's a lot of entrepreneurship happening already. I have lots of family running their own small businesses (trades), and it's a lot of work, and doesn't necessarily pay as well as a cushy corporate job, but what I'm trying to say is lots…

And what ARE those businesses? There's delis everywhere, should I open up a 24/7 bodega? Start selling knives I learn to forge on the Internet and make YouTube videos about knife making? That's going to replace our financial commitments will it?

Here's another problem - how do you get healthcare without a corporate group plan? In my state the ACA offers expensive in-network only plans where you wait months for appointments.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#625

Post by insane_dreamer »

hibikir wrote: post #237

In my experience, it's been the complete opposite. The very experienced engineers that are actually willing to use top of the line tooling are much better than they were before, including those that are over 40, and over 50. Part of the practical degradation of traditional programmers over time has always been concentration and deep calculation, just like in chess. The old chess player knows chess much better than a…

> The senior that before could lead a team of 6 is now leading a team of agents

you just confirmed the point that the author is making in the article:

the team of 6 is no longer needed,

and, logically, is therefore eliminated by the company

So yes, SWE still exists as a career for some, but their numbers might be reduced by 85%.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#626

Post by mancerayder »

Terr_ wrote: post #527
mancerayder wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a lot of SV-speak. How exactly do people step into an entrepreneurial phase? They're at work in corporate settings with fixed defined roles. Most workplaces are not many-hatted-donning startup environments, but restricted roles where there are deliverables, deadlines, meetings, etc. Which leaves out of hours for "entrepreneurship" whatever that is. Github project work on the weekends? That's not possible for m…

> That's a lot of SV-speak. How exactly do people step into an entrepreneurial phase? Oh, you simply decide to use grit and willpower to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, placing some calls to people you met at certain parties aided by a small 6 digit loan from your family. /s My default expectation of "employees should be more entrepreneurial" is that's it's a kind of victim-blaming. I'm especially cynical if the…

It's comfort (for the already made men) for the possibility of a dystopic economy where tech jobs become very rare. A scenario which could play out as we compete harder with each other for the pickings.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#627

Post by davnicwil »

bborud wrote: post #67

Multiple times per week I have the same conversation. It goes something like this: - AI will make developers irrelevant - Why? - Because LLMs can write code - Do you know what I do for a living? - Yes, write code? - Yes, about 2-5% of the time. Less now. - But you said you are a developer? - I did - So what do you do 95-98% of the time? - I understand things and then apply my ability to formulate solutions - But I ca…

> Natural selection will take care of them in due course

Wonderful articulation. There's a plethora of prognostication about how AI will change everything in software and beyond and the thing I keep thinking is, well, when will the talk stop and the demonstration of results commence. It doesn't seem to have as yet.

If it works, it'll work. The methods will spread and quickly be accessible to everyone, and progress will go on. That's great.

If it doesn't work, we'll also see that in the absence of real results. And simply stating you are seeing it doesn't qualify. It must be something we can all see and use that is unavoidably, undeniably real.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#628

Post by datsci_est_2015 »

pear01 wrote: post #534
datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not the opposite. There’s no current evidence to suggest limitless progress, or even superlinear progress with regards to compute and energy. My guess would be sub linear or even logarithmic progress vs. linear growth in compute and energy, as that’s how most physical systems behave.

No one said unlimited progress. Let's not revert to straw man claims. If you think the potential of LLMs is overblown feel free to short the market. I don't pretend to know the future. But if I may, I don't think you are framing the debate in the correct terms. Evidence is an important facet of human affairs. So is risk. Best of luck with your predictions.

Markets can remain irrational longer than anyone can stay solvent (especially when wealth is as concentrated as it is currently: one doofus can keep an entire industry afloat).

“Unlimited progress” is not a statement on the rate of progress, it’s a statement on the limits of progress. It’s a much weaker claim than you’re framing it as. Your claim very much is that we have not yet reached the limits of LLMs potential. My claim, conversely, is that we’re already reaching diminishing returns, which are being masked by a massive influx of compute and energy. My short: LLMs are not the path to AGI.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#629

Post by fireant »

wiseowise wrote: post #401
charlie90 wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like doordashing and pokemon card reselling.

Don't forget OnlyFans and streaming.

Doordash and similar are experimenting with autonomous/remotely operated vehicles and porn is getting decimated once good enough uncensored video gen ai gets available. That doesn't sound like viable career choices either.

Re: Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career

#630

Post by nsoonhui »

I think the polarizing response regarding AI depends on which lenses you are looking through. For junior roles, yes, the job is rapidly disappearing. But for senior roles, experience and judgment are more important than ever.

So yes, software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career for a lot of people, much like elite sport is not a viable career for most—but still, some will, and must, make it their career.

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