We should get back to the basic definition of the engineering job. An engineer understands requirements, translates them into logical flows that can be automated, communicates tradeoffs across the organization, and makes tradeoff calls on maintainability, extensibility, readability, and security. Most importantly, they’re accountable for the outcome, because many tradeoffs only reveal their cost once they hit reality

None of this is covered by code generation, nor by juniors submitting random PRs. Those are symptoms of juniors (not only) missing fundamentals. When we forget what the job actually is, we create misalignment with junior engineers and end up with weird ideas like "spec-driven development"

If anything, coding agents are a wake-up call that clarify what engineering profession is really about

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newsoftheday 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Agreed.

https://read.engineerscodex.com/p/how-one-line-of-code-cause...

When 10K LOC AI PR's are being created, sometimes by people who either don't understand the code or haven't reviewed the code their trying to submit; the 60 million dollar failure line is potentially lying in wait.

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tete 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Okay, then software engineers are not engineers.

The whole reliability, etc. to many is not of much priority. Things got an absolutely shitshow and still everyone buys it.

In other words the only outcome will be that people don't have or don't want to have engineers anymore.

Companies are very much not interested in someone who does the above, but at most someone who sells or cosplays these things - if even.

Cause that what creates income. They don't care if they sell crap, they care that they sell it and the cheaper they can produce the better. So money gets poured into marketing not quality.

High quality products are not sought after. And fake quality like putting a computer or a phone in a box like jewelry, even if you throw that very box away the next time you walk by a trash bin. That's what people consider quality these days, even if it's just a waste of resources.

And businesses choose products and services the same way as regular consumers, even when they want the marketing to make them feel good about it in a slightly different way, because marketing to your target audience makes sense. Duh!

People are ready to pay more for having the premium label stamped on to something, pay more to feel good about it, but most of the time are very unwilling to pay for measurable quality, an engineer provides.

It's scary, even with infrastructure the process seems to change, probably also due to corruption, but that's a whole other can of worms.

> communicates tradeoffs across the organization

They may do that. They may be recognized for it. But if the guy next door with the right cosplay says something like "we are professionals, look at how we have been on the market for X years" or "look at our market share" then no matter how far from reality the bullshitting is they'll be getting the money.

At the beginning of the year/end of last year I learned how little expertise, professionalism and engineering are required to be a multi billion NASDAQ stock. For months I thought that it cannot possibly be, that the core product of a such a company displays such a complete lack of expertise in the core area(s). Yet, they somehow managed to convince management to just invest a couple more times of money than the original budget that was already seen as quite the stretch. Of course they promises didn't end being anywhere close to true, and they completely forgot to inform us (our management) about severe limitations.

So if you are good at selling to management which you can be by pocketing consultants recommending you then things will work seemingly no matter what.

> If anything, coding agents are a wake-up call that clarify what engineering profession is really about

I believe what we need to wake up to or come to terms with is that our industry (everything that would go into NASDAQ) is a farce. Coding agents show that. It doesn't matter to create half-assed products if you come to sell them. You are selling your products to people. Doesn't matter if it's some guy at a hot dog stand or a CEO of a big successful company or going from house to house selling the best vacuum cleaner ever. What matters is you making people believe it would be stupid not to take your product.

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order-matters 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

TBH I think Information Systems Engineering and Computer Engineering can just eat software engineers lunch at this point. the entire need for a separate engineering discipline on software was for low level coding. Custom hardware chips are easier to make for simple things and not a lot of need in low level coding anymore for more complex things means the focus is shifting back to either hardware choices or higher level system management

I'd argue the only places left you really need low level coding fall under computer science. If you are a computer or systems engineer who needs to work with a lot of code then youll benefit from having exposure to computer science, but an actual engineering discipline for just software seems silly now. Not to mention pretty much all engineers at this point are configuring software tools on their own to some degree

I think it's similar to how there used to be horse doctors as a separate profession from vets when horses were much more prominent in everyday life, but now they are all vets again and some of them specialize in horses

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chasd00 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> I believe what we need to wake up to or come to terms with is that our industry (everything that would go into NASDAQ) is a farce.

the thing is, with software development, it's always been this way. Developers have just had tunnel vision for decades because they stare into an editor all day long instead trying to actually sell a product. If selling wasn't the top priority then what do you think would happen to your direct deposit? Software developers, especially software developers, live in this fantasy land where the believe their paycheck just happens automatically and always will. I think it's becoming critical that new software devs entering the workforce spend a couple years at a small, eat what you kill, consultancy or small business. Somewhere where they can see the relationship between building, selling, and their paycheck first hand.

	▲	heliumtera 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Technology has absolute qualities. Not a fantasy. Are you being paid to browse hacker news? Probl not, but here you are. Maybe you never considered this, but programming for other reasons other than a salary is a possibility. If those pesky programmers gave it all away, for free, what would be left for you to sell? In this case, would you leave technology? Would you go somewhere else and practice your selling there? Can't we defend building for the sake of building? Doing for the sake of having fun? Maybe you would be left with nothing to sell, I understand, but that's fine for me. Sorry.

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venturecruelty 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

How do you square that with "use AI and get this feature done in three days or have your 'performance reviewed' with HR in the room"? Because I'm having trouble bridging that gap.

Edit: help, the new org said the same thing. :(

Edit 2: you guys, seriously, the HR lady keeps looking up at me and shaking her head. I don't think this is good. I tried to be a real, bigboy engineer, but they just mumbled something about KPIs and put me on a PIP.

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rnewme 4 days ago | parent [-]

Uptime x customer satisfaction vs. stack of cards. If they don't understand engineering prepare CV and head over to org that does.

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tete 4 days ago | parent [-]

I think people are getting used to stuff not working. People (like me) use crap like Teams, Slack, that web version of Office, Outlook, etc. on a daily basis and pour huge amounts money in. They use shit like Fortinet (the digital version of dream catchers) and so on.

Things break. A lot. Doctors successful or not also deal with the same shitty IT on a daily basis.

Nobody cares about engineering. It's about selling stuff, not about reliability, etc.

And to some degree one is forced to use that stuff anyways.

So sure you can go to a company understanding engineering, but if you do a job for salary you might lose out on quite a bit on it if you care for things like quality. We see this in so many different sectors.

Sure there is a unicorn here and there that makes it for a while. And they might even go big and then they sell the company or change to maximizing profits, because that's the only way up when you essentially already made it (on top of one of the big players).

For small projects/companies it depends if you have a way to still launch big, which you can usually do with enough capital. You can still make a big profit with a crappy product then, but essentially only once or twice. But then your goal also doesn't have to create quality.

Microsoft and Fortinet for example wouldn't profit from adding (much) quality. They profit from hypes. So they now both do "AI".

	▲	rnewme 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yup, we are all definitely lowering the bar of what's acceptable when it comes to uptime and bugs. More features more hype x10 seems to be the standard approach to market, but there are still a lot of companies and teams where greybeards and rational folks remember and understand previous hype cycles/bubbles, and who appreciate and protect the engineering approach. It's just that they mostly hire/partner by reference, so it's kinda hard to exit the toxic bubble of startups and "growth hacking" enterprises.