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LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

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Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#661

Post by bluefirebrand »

skeledrew wrote: post #192

Yeah the writing is on the wall. Not just for knowledge work, but for jobs in general, as I've been saying in other comments. The era of wage labour, and this dominant economic system, is coming to an end. There's no way it can coexist with AI, but it also needs to continuously push for better AI, which means there's no stopping it. The only thing to do really is brace for the disruption - which will likely be pretty…

> The only thing to do really is brace for the disruption - which will likely be pretty rough - and hope governments play their role properly to ease the transition.

What this sounds like to me is "sit and wait to get bulldozed now that your economic value to the elites is gone"

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#662

Post by djeastm »

PantaloonFlames wrote: post #547
esafak wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a product called Microsoft Copilot...

a slightly different metaphor. Copilot suggests it is next to you, helping you pilot... something else. The computer? The system? But "piloting the LLM" changes the relationship. The LLM is the thing that is being piloted.

I think their metaphor is apt. Microsoft Copilot is, in modern terms, the "harness" that "co-pilots" the LLM it manages sessions for, with you as the "pilot". So you are still piloting the LLM.

At least that's how it reads to me.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#663

Post by bluefirebrand »

doright wrote: post #37

Realistically, what should we have done instead? Not invent LLMs? What happens when a couple thousand people invent the next disruptive technology and even more of the population loses their jobs? It seems like new tech is something most of us have to lie down and accept as the new reality each time it's invented, barring full-scale rioting. Much as with the Cold War.

> Realistically, what should we have done instead? Not invent LLMs

Yes, obviously we should not invent technology that seems likely to disrupt society out of existence

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#664

Post by cmiles74 »

spicyusername wrote: post #644
cmiles74 wrote: post #129

I’ve been using Claude Code with Opus 4.7; it’s not that the code it produces is wrong, it simply tends to write too much of it. In my opinion it’s still worth thinking about a particular feature and finding the best way to fit it into your code because Claude will often just pick a layer of the stack (maybe presentation), and jam it in there. A couple weeks later you need this data somewhere else and Claude can’t re…

I have also noticed the too much code issue. The open question for me is whether too much code is actually a problem. These tools are a fact of life now. If we can solve problems or debug faster, and the software is less buggy, than it's not too much lines of code, it's just right.

I hear what you’re saying, I’ve wondered this myself. My suspicion is that if we let duplicate or very similar code accumulate, eventually we’ll have enough that it will start to slow down or impact the success rate of the AI tooling. It might update two chunks of relevant code but miss the third, leading to a bug. Or it might grow confused over which of three similar chunks of code are providing the “correct” behavior.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#665

Post by theshrike79 »

alexpotato wrote: post #391

I've posted this before but worth posting again: I work in DevOps at a firm that has been very enthusiastic about using LLMs (in the good sense). The phases were basically: - try out having the LLM do "a lot" - now even more - now run multiple agents - back to single agents but have the agents build tools - tools that are deterministic AND usable by both the humans (EDIT: and the LLMs) The reasons: 1. Deterministic t…

This is the way to do it.

You can have the Big Boy LLM do _everything_. It can and it will do it. It will also cost fucktons of money and take a long time.

But if you build tools (with AI) that do as many tasks in the process deterministically as possible and let the AI use those, it'll be a lot faster and cheaper to run it.

As a bonus you can eventually drop the expensive cloud AI and run a small/medium sized local model instead.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#666

Post by lanigone »

mactavish88 wrote: post #48

> I still have one pillar standing, though: code quality and software architecture - what's now being reduced to being called "taste". Genuine question: what exactly is "quality"? It's something I've been trying to understand for a very long time. It seems like it's entirely contextual, and it has both subjective and objective facets (the latter only for quantifiable things, and still entirely contextual).

check out the work of Robert Pirsig.

one of myriad ways to define "quality" I use often is 'as the intersection of art and science'

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#667

Post by davnicwil »

p2detar wrote: post #643
george_max wrote: post #617

I see many comments saying, "AI can't do X with 80-100% accuracy; therefore our professions are in good hands." While I don't want to sound overly pessimistic, the models are improving at a rapid rate. If asked ~3 years ago where the state of the models are today, it would sound like sci-fi if answered, "the models are creating full MVP apps in ~30 minutes with one prompt". The hurdles the models are facing now, like…

Why would it stop with just developer layoffs? When software companies rely on LLM providers to run their business, I’d argue we‘ll see a massive bust of these companies around the world - from on-prem products to SaaS. Customers may build the software they need entirely in-house or via prompt-engineer consultants, without the need to buy software tools like today. It could be a very very different world.

This won't happen in most cases because the valuable thing is largely the knowledge encoded in the software, which the buyers of the software don't have and don't want to have since they're focused on their own business.

There's also, of course, the not insignificant value in the software itself actually working, being operated, being updated when necessary, all of that. Again just extra hassle no business will want to shoulder when they can just buy something that does it for them.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#668

Post by catigula »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #640
catigula wrote: post #349

Just want to point out that code quality and architecture is actually eroded by codes 5.5. It’s over for this job I think.

Just want to point out that such claims have been made, falsely, for every model to come out in the past three years. It's almost certainly not true this time either.

I am truly sorry, but it is true this time.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#669

Post by troupo »

solenoid0937 wrote: post #411
oceanplexian wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it such a dramatic statement for Boris to claim that he no longer writes code? Are people on HN still typing out functions by hand one character at a time? It would be like a developer in 2020 claiming that he only writes assembly because compilers can’t be trusted. No one is taking that person seriously. If you chose a career in tech you made a decision to work in one of the fastest moving fields in human his…

It is because HN is contrarian and behind the times. I work at a big tech company and I don't know a single person that still hand writes code. Most people haven't hand written code for at least half a year now. I do wonder what sort of bug is making its rounds on HN that people here find this so shocking and unbelievable.

The bug is called "applying actual engineering principles and critical thinking".

The absolute vast majority of people who point out AI's downsides have used it and use it. People who uncritically write things like "I work at a big tech company and I don't know a single person that still hand writes code." scare the shit out of us for a good reason.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#670

Post by hibgymnb »

NewsaHackO wrote: post #602
atomicnumber3 wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suno is completely incapable of producing heavy metal. I can't speak for other genres bc I don't listen to them, but what it produces is completely hollow and devoid of what makes metal metal. I also think most metal fans will categorically reject AI-made metal on principle.

>will categorically reject AI-made metal on principle. I think this is a huge part of the reason people sometimes find AI criticism so dismissible; there is always some factor other than the actual product it seems that AI-made assets are judged on. With Suno, the biggest ones I've seen are 1) hating AI-created music by virtue of it being AI-created, and 2) the hate is from people who attempt to generate income from…

So heres a suno criticism that has nothing to do with hating AI music on principle:

The most appealing part of my favrorite music is the human element. When I hear someone singing and I know they mean it.

When they tell me a story and I can tell it’s genuine.

When I can relate to what they’re saying and who they are as a human.

Suno will never be able to recreate that.

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