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I don't know if my job will still exist in ten years

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Re: I don't know if my job will still exist in ten years

#4
In “Ask HN style”, let’s say that software engineering does go extinct in the next X years, what would you do?

I’ve thought about psychology. I know LLMs can work as pseudo-therapists but I feel like that’s a field where the human connection / human element will remain important.

Re: I don't know if my job will still exist in ten years

#6
I feel exactly this.

One thing I will add: while AI is getting really good at _doing_ the software building bits, I haven't yet seen it well integrated into the decision-making and political structure of organizations. Right now, it seems best in the hands of a high-agency individual empowered and able to make changes or 'ship' something, with them acting as the bridge.

This of course, is not a technical challenge, but I would expect the change in structure of organizations to make this more efficient to be slower than the pace of improvement we've seen over the last few years.

Re: I don't know if my job will still exist in ten years

#8
post #4

In “Ask HN style”, let’s say that software engineering does go extinct in the next X years, what would you do? I’ve thought about psychology. I know LLMs can work as pseudo-therapists but I feel like that’s a field where the human connection / human element will remain important.

Entrepreneurship, obviously.

Re: I don't know if my job will still exist in ten years

#9
I can relate, I was really looking forward to settling into mentorship roles.

However I am not quite so defeated, I think that developers will continue to find employment in tech even as AI augments the roles. Experienced developers are the obvious pick for a hire to run agentic AI development tools, and even the obvious pick for managing a no-code endgame scenario as they are just smart technologists with strong problem solving skills.

I think the devs who were only here for the paycheck and would not reasonably pick software if it didn't pay so much, will probably be happy to retrain into something else but be disappointed by the paycut.

I am also excited by the prospect of being able to take on bigger scale side projects solo as that's really where my passion lies.

I think general purpose technologists will really excel in this new ecosystem as the industry will be back to moving fast and breaking stuff for a while, for better or worse. A lot of them call themselves programmers right now but will evolve pretty quickly.

Pragmatism, small teams and fast pace will best deliver software based projects, and the bottleneck in big orgs will become (or already was) the bureaucracy and communication layers. Small team, greenfield projects have a huge advantage in getting an MVP to market, which is pretty exciting for someone excited mostly by solving problems with technology.

Time will tell though, this is not career advice and times are chaotic. At the end of the day, there are other careers, and you were smart enough to get into software. You will be smart enough to find a new career.

Re: I don't know if my job will still exist in ten years

#10
post #2

> It sucks. I miss feeling like my job was secure, ... The wheel of industry rolls forward and crushes everyone underneath it

Progress is inevitable.

Is it? I mean in the end it is a political decision. We are used to infinite progress, infinite growth and infinite rationalization. But for what good? People have not become more free to pursuit their generic interests in Marx' sense but there's just more concentration in the hand of the capital while unemployment is growing. Weren't we better of to have less rationalization and have more meaningful work for people?
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