aprilthird2021 3 hours ago

No it's absolutely not time to let go. You are one of a limited set of people with pre-AI taste and intuition for good software. They aren't making any more of them. And you'll be a super valuable asset anywhere you go.

I mean, if you want to retire go ahead, but don't do it because of AI. AI is just a tool to generate code faster. It doesn't replace the work of actually making design decisions and knowing what will scale and what's better going forward vs what will work now but spiral into unmanageable spaghetti code soon (yes AIs also have a harder time managing messy code than neat code)

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probably_wrong 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I often read here comments along the lines of "there will be plenty of jobs for AI-unfuckers" [1], but I fear the truth may be closer to "sometimes things are broken, are then fixed with a broken solution, and will remain broken till the end of time".

In my last round of job search this year no one asked me questions about good software practices but they did ask me how proficient I was with AI agents. And let's not forget that we are part of an industry whose motto is "move fast and break things". Sure, NASA has a zero-bugs approach to software dev, but they don't have room for all of us.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44646820

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XenophileJKO 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm am certainly an "ai believer" and have been since I saw the tragectory we were on.

It was pretty simple to project the compounding effects and headroom that we had. I go back and forth on this all the time.

There probably won't be much demand for "un-fuckers". Up until recently I thought knowing what to build for a given context would give you quite a bit of runway.

I still think knowing what you should build will be important for the next 12-24 months.. but I have to be honest.. after that.. I don't know.

I don't know how to feel myself. I'm certainly an "ideas" guy as well as a nitty gritty build it guy. I just think my technical side is depreciating very rapidly.

	▲	rubzah 34 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Completely agree. Saying this as someone who loves handcrafting code and has been doing it professionally for decades, it looks like a dead end at this point. LLM generated code might not be pretty, but these damn models are already so good at handling complexity, that they can actually work fine with a byzantine code base (which honestly would also describe most human-derived codebases I have worked with). I am still reeling from this realization and trying to figure out what it means.

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kakacik 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

SV echo chamber here it seems. No, most businesses globally don't work in idiotic and often amoral mode of 'move fast and break things' (and unlawful on top of that, but who has time for some boring stuff like that when greed fully takes over).

Banks will not work like that for next 10 years at least. The tiny amount of money one could save on those big banking projects by using llms aggressively will bite back immediately when shit just doesn't work, clients leave for good and regulators will fine you to the ground (or remove your banking license). Many other businesses who are not race to the bottom and realize how crucial reliable IT is to their business also won't go that way anytime soon.

World is not ending, there is some transformation and thats about it. Its true there will be much less jobs for devs but its mostly affecting newcomers. Statistical models are not making code better than experienced humans, and won't for some time if ever.

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lmz an hour ago | parent [-]

> most businesses globally don't work in idiotic and often amoral mode of 'move fast and break things'

Not sure what business you are in but the non tech industries (corporate IT, in house apps) have not, in general, been associated with quality. Cost cutting, outsourcing to the lowest bidder: yes. Quality: no.

	▲	kakacik 5 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Mostly banking but dipped my feet in many other areas in the past (telco, insurance, municipalities, army etc). Its true budgets are often the problem, but not much 'move fast and break things' mantra of SV, rather 'move as much as low budget and corresponding quality and bureaucracy allows you to'

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netdevphoenix 43 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Look at the COBOL devs. They are been called in their retirement years. You don't want that to be you. Life is short

	▲	cpursley 35 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Have you seen what they charge per hour? Let’s just say it’s not Upwork rates.

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Our_Benefactors 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is what’s know as “cope”. People are not being hired on the basis of how well they know how to not use AI. That is the basis of what people were hired on before AI, because no alternative existed.