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AI is removing the middle class of software engineering?

blog.florianherrengt.com

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Re: AI is removing the middle class of software engineering?

#671

Post by johnnyanmac »

codexon wrote: post #661
johnnyanmac wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>as long as the quality is good. Well that's where we're seemingly at an impasse, no? I don't even like the term "good vibecoding". The term was implied as a means to just let the computer type its own code and "go with the vibes". i.e. you have no deeper idea on how it works underneath. Now, AI-assisted coding? It can be good. It can be a rush job. But the idea is that LLM's are in the passenger's seat, not the dive…

The output is indistinguishable from manually written code.

I hope on HN of all places I don't need to explain the difference between "writing correct code" and "Software Engineering". We both know what a 20 year old million line legacy software needs.

Re: AI is removing the middle class of software engineering?

#672

Post by Joel_Mckay »

omosubi wrote: post #609

I forget the economics term for this but doesn't an improvement in tools result in little net change because everyone across the industry is given effectively the same leg up? Doesn't this mean that things will mostly stay the same employment wise? Most people aren't 10x engineers even with agents. Certain things are true: most products need someone on call 24/7, a group of people who know how to support a product (w…

LLM are worse, papers have shown it can actually rot peoples skills by 17% at debugging tasks. It actually makes people stupid, and 250% more confident it isn't enshitification.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axOcn--n_lM

Some feel more productive, and we shouldn't kink-shame peoples cognitive dildo. =3

Re: AI is removing the middle class of software engineering?

#673

Post by johnnyanmac »

TiccyRobby wrote: post #279

The premise does not make any sense, it is a technical culture problem which you need to enforce. If you let it go wild, yes it will go wilder than ever but this is relatively trivial problem.

Problem is that many large companies all collectively decided that yes, we want it to go wild. because value proposition lies more in saying we use it than on what it's actually building.

Re: AI is removing the middle class of software engineering?

#674

Post by johnnyanmac »

mjr00 wrote: post #36

It's very true, you used to have to hire people you knew were not very good just to have warm bodies who could throw together widgets, minor bug fixes, etc. You still had to have a competent developer review what they did, which was annoying, but ultimately a time saver over doing it themselves. Now the competent developer can just run agents and do the same review process, except it's ~free (relative to human salari…

> it's ~free (relative to human salaries, even outsourced).

Even ignoring the shift to token based costs, the opportunity costs of throwing everything onto your "competent developers" isn't free. They still need time to review and correct output on top of whatever else they were doing in their day to day. And they probably aren't getting a pay raise either, so how long until they use that bullet point to jump jobs?

Re: AI is removing the middle class of software engineering?

#675

Post by skydhash »

crystal_revenge wrote: post #572
skydhash wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A good engineer, with a good model and harness will produce great stuff. A bad engineer with a good model and harness will produce something faster, but it will be worse. A good engineer, without LLM assistance, will still produce great stuff.

> A good engineer, without LLM assistance, will still produce great stuff. Not fast enough to keep their job these days. Time was always the limiting factor to code quality, good engineers satisfied the classic "good", "fast" but not "cheap" selection of those three classic options. I very sincerely doubt it is possible for even an incredible engineer to keep up with the delivery schedules required to ship products n…

> I very sincerely doubt it is possible for even an incredible engineer to keep up with the delivery schedules required to ship products now.

What's the current delivery rates? From my past experience, any feature can take several weeks from idea to be in a somewhat usable shape for production. While the actual coding is often less than a few days. A lot of time is spent on gathering requirements and resolving conflicts between them.

I believe most current improvement in speed is just moving from idea to demo in a few days, then spend several months fighting bugs. While the customer can't really use said feature.

Re: AI is removing the middle class of software engineering?

#676

Post by aussieguy1234 »

> bad engineers were always a liability

So. AI Makes good engineers better, more productive and able to deliver well designed systems.

But it makes the bad engineers 10x worse. Before, they had negative productivity in a team environment. Now, its 10x negative productivity. The mess they create as one person might need 10 people (and their AI's) to clean up.

I would also put people who don't know how to code in that bad engineer basket. They would be delivering code they don't understand, accepting unnecessary complexity etc just like your standard bad engineer.

Re: AI is removing the middle class of software engineering?

#677

Post by Silhouette »

groundzeros2015 wrote: post #630
Silhouette wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would credentialing software engineers do to curtail leadership incentive problems? The same as in other regulated professions. It would give the people on the front line who can see the consequences of the corner cutting an effective right to say "No, we're not doing this user hostile thing". This would be a significant barrier because it wouldn't be legal to ship software without the required professional appr…

That’s not how these systems work in reality. I’m actually an extreme pessimist. What actually happens is that you as an engineer become paid to frame the desired leadership goals in compliant terms. It’s similar to how lawyers and regulatory compliance rarely change the product. They change how the product is talked about and framed for the purpose of regulation. This skill among engineers is highly sought after in…

In the physical engineering teams I've worked with the culture you just described is not what happens at all. There are always some people who seemingly live to circumvent the intention of rules lurking around the edges of regulated industries. But my own experience has been that real engineers very much value real engineering - it's often why they got into the field in the first place - and will push back hard against and if necessary refuse to sign off anything they consider inappropriate for the job. They won't be impressed at all by someone's big title and even bigger budget while they're exercising that professional judgement either. Some of these people have had pretty stellar careers so I think it's safe to say their professional conduct hasn't damaged them with their employers or clients.

Re: AI is removing the middle class of software engineering?

#678

Post by johnnyanmac »

crnkofe wrote: post #278

All this mindless droning about societal collapse, destruction of jobs, people moving on is really getting old. Sure people have caused mayhem by following (and enforcing) bad practices which resulted in a toxic workplace, a mix of pissed of client due to constantly failing to reach deadlines, unimaginably bad codebase that was a horror to work with and teammates each defending their own turf. LLMs now allow this det…

>All this mindless droning about societal collapse, destruction of jobs, people moving on is really getting old

I mean, it's a huge issue and is still happening. It will be talked about until properly addressed.

Re: AI is removing the middle class of software engineering?

#679

Post by nocman »

e2le wrote: post #432
overgard wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of think the whole "Learn to Code" push of the 2010s was one of the worst things that happened to our industry. Call me a gatekeeper if you want but, we ended up with a lot of people that just can't do the job. The problem is our industry mostly doesn't have any sort of reasonable mentorship or apprenticeship culture, so we've always left it to the engineers to teach themselves. Sink or swim. The problem is th…

> Call me a gatekeeper if you want but, we ended up with a lot of people that just can't do the job. Increasingly I am of the opinion that software engineering aught to be a licensed profession, similar to civil engineers, medical professionals, or lawyers. A board of peers to hold you accountable and a licence that can be revoked at any time. Additionally, legislation could be written to require such licensed indivi…

Licensing is not a substitute for hiring competent people that actually care about the quality of their work, and then giving them the time, resources, and support they actually need to do it.

Government involvement almost always just makes the problem worse, not better. There is a place for control in some areas (medical, military applications, etc), but I think broad-sweeping regulation would do far more damage than good.

Re: AI is removing the middle class of software engineering?

#680

Post by johnnyanmac »

zackmorris wrote: post #205

Wait till we realize that nobody is buying the software we vibe code anyway. We've seen this game before, with the Dot Bomb and 9/11. A lot of you have 6 figure jobs that will simply be gone next year after the election, never to return. That winter lasted about 5 years until 2007 when the iPhone and social media sites like Facebook went mainstream. This winter won't end. Or more accurately, it is the end. Maybe we s…

Looking towards a socialist future seems to imply some goodwill that governments will just magically come around to proper welfare programs and billionaires will agreed to be taxed properly to support it.

Or you simply take for granted the bloodbath the next decade will be before we come to proper talks of this. I don't think that is something to handwave unless you have your billionaire bunker ready.

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