AI is removing the middle class of software engineering?

Post by nixon_why69 » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 3:53 AM UTC

jselysianeagle wrote: post #463

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole "learn to code" and software bootcamp craze always baffled me. Like what other profession markets themselves as "Hey, our job is so easy that any schmuck off the street can enter the career with 4 months of training." Practically every other job I can think of at a similar salary level has entrance requirements (e.g. grad school admissions exams), extensive and expensive training, a lengthy apprenticeship p…

> Like what other profession markets themselves as "Hey, our job is so easy that any schmuck off the street can enter the career with 4 months of training." For one, the industry never did professionalize to begin with, certainly not in the way accountants, lawyers etc did. We never had any real body that could certify proficiency, which is what contributed to companies having to resort to leetcode and other such sty…

Post by monksy » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 4:05 AM UTC

overgard wrote: post #375

Syntaf wrote: post #35

> bad engineers were always a liability This part of the article hits home for me. With AI, "bad" engineers can now amplify their "bad" engineering x10 across the organization. The most egregious of these cases for me is often long tenured engineers who have lost interest in the craft, creating a dangerous combination of having enough merit to ship but not enough interest to make what they ship _good_. I am still a f…

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…

Post by ElProlactin » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 4:09 AM UTC

joshdavham wrote: post #752

ElProlactin wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For one, the industry never did professionalize to begin with, certainly not in the way accountants, lawyers etc did. "Professionalize" is an interesting way to frame this. As Milton Friedman argued, occupational licensure is almost always pursued by the practitioners rather than consumers. The licensing boards are mostly run by practicing lawyers and CPAs, so you have practicing lawyers and CPAs determining who ca…

> It's equally dubious to believe that some sort of body (ostensibly run by practicing software developers) would be able to come up with a means to certify proficiency. I very much mostly agree with you, but I did take the Google Cloud Associate exam a year and a half ago and honestly it felt like a pretty rigorous exam. I definitely could not have passed that exam if I was incompetent in my knowledge of cloud and I…

Post by cm11 » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 4:18 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #414

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…

The whole "learn to code" and software bootcamp craze always baffled me. Like what other profession markets themselves as "Hey, our job is so easy that any schmuck off the street can enter the career with 4 months of training." Practically every other job I can think of at a similar salary level has entrance requirements (e.g. grad school admissions exams), extensive and expensive training, a lengthy apprenticeship p…

Post by eloisius » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 4:28 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #749

timr wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sorry, but if I'm doing the hiring, the person who isn't willing to come on site to do an interview will be one of the first people off the list to hire Nobody said anything about not coming on site. That's how we used to do it, in the ancient pre-history of 2019. What I said was that if you bring someone on site only to leetcode them , you deserve not to hire anyone. The downside, of course, is that you don't…

If you're willing to travel to be on site, you should be willing to study for the leetcode test.