This moment is coming for software developers too

Yeah almost certainly, especially the ones who made a career out of "copypaste from StackOverflow", which is most engineers.

But even the good engineers should likely be a little worried.

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rootusrootus 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

More specifically, it is coming for coders. If you make your living by banging out lines of code all day, then you may want to be looking at adjusting your career trajectory. But if that is your job, you are either very junior, or a bit foolish for getting into that situation.

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zuzululu 5 hours ago | parent [-]

so what is software developer doing if writing code is not part of their job

I don't see how not writing code is being offered as a moat, it seems like that is just translating business/stakeholder requirements to architecture/biz processes which is exactly the type of low hanging fruit that AI will capture first

or was it your point that the position sits closer to the stakeholders (relatively compared to those lifting) thus immune from replacement by AI

or is your argument that your taste is exquisite that no AI will be able to match it like it already has with software so far and it will not improve beyond the current state

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tombert 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If you get to senior level then most of your job probably is not writing code, but planning things out. The code is largely an implementation detail.

At least that's how it was for me, maybe other peoples' careers are different.

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lelanthran 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> If you get to senior level then most of your job probably is not writing code, but planning things out.

If they're so good at banging out code now, they're coming for that too, you know.

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tombert 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't necessarily disagree, but there's gotta be a name for some kind of "infinite extrapolation" fallacy, where you assume that the current rate of progress will continue indefinitely.

That might happen, but I don't think it's implied, at least given literally every other bit of technology that has ever happened in history ever.

	▲	lelanthran 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I don't necessarily disagree, but there's gotta be a name for some kind of "infinite extrapolation" fallacy, where you assume that the current rate of progress will continue indefinitely. I am not assuming they'll continue indefinitely, but it's a small step from writing code to planning out the code to write, and another small step from planning a coding project to planning a software project, etc. These are all small steps, and because the act of specification + planning paid less than specification + planning + programming, what reason do you have for thinking that specification + planning is valuable enough to keep the salaries the same as specification + planning + programming?

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bluefirebrand 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, my career has been different. At my workplaces seniors still have to code because they dont want to hire juniors

The "planning things out" has moved to another layer, called "architects"

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pwython 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Same thing architects do if drawing lines gets automated: architecture.

Would you trust living in a high rise designed by AI?

Designing a system that survives production is the job.

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skydhash 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

So what a lab researcher doing if typing articles is not part of the job?

	▲	jujube3 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well--well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people? https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductManagement/comments/uy1ot1/w...

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ixtli 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think this collapses a global, complex heirarchy of software engineering workers into a single monolith and serves only to advertise for frontier LLM providers. the point where you no longer need engineers is not going to be reached by making LLMs better and better.

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VBprogrammer 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think there is going to be a long time before all of the obscure knowledge of a decent software developer can be completely replaced by AI. Though the job is going to change beyond recognition. It already has in many ways.

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daveguy 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

But not before a huge crash in optimism about their capabilities. Specifically wrt accuracy, reliability, efficiency, and organization/architecture.