Ask HN: After Coding, What Next?
Coding would be considered by many to be an elite, sought-after skill in today's world. But tomorrow, what would be its equivalent?
It used to be very hard to do all this, but now there are community vetted tools and tool-suites we can use to level up security & personal privacy. Think ad-blockers, mature and capable Operating Sytems like Ubuntu, privacy aware browsers like Firefox & the Tor Browser Bundle, as-well as encrypted cloud-based note-taking apps like Standard Notes, and even password managers like Bitwarden. We are spoiled for choice lately!
It's just putting data on a medium and communicating information. It's why I'm skeptical on no-code ending coding - the most effective form of communication is code. High level code is shorthand - one of the most efficient things out there is array.map().filter()
We'll have AI writing code in the future, but programmers will just become today's equivalent of project owners and managers. They still need to break down requirements, design, tests, and so on. Until there's AGI, someone needs to talk to the customers and clients.
Coding is dime a dozen skill these days. Understanding what to code, and the overall strategy is way more valuable.
Learn strategy, policy, architecture, etc.
There's roles for people that focus on lower-level operating system or embedded systems development. There's roles for people that focus on frontend, or web application development. There's many roles where you wouldn't be considered a software engineer, but involve coding like in science or research.
While being a good software engineer (like being a good writer) are skills that translate well, I think the specializations and skills will continue to evolve into different niches. Some of these niches will be longer lived, others more transitory. When you develop your own skills, you have to decide if the skills you invest in are going to be longer-lived/valuable, or if they'll go away and not be particularly useful.