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Comment by 101008 | Hacker News Reader

> I am now at a real impasse, towards the end of my career and knowing I could happily start it all again with a new insight and much bigger visions for what I could take on. It feels like wining the lottery two weeks before you die

I envy this optimistic. I am not the opposite (im a sr engineer with more than 15 years of experience), but I am scared about my future. I invested too much time in learning concepts, theory, getting a Master degree, and in a few years all of my knowledge can be useless in the market.

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IT is never static. I have had to take several forks in my career with languages and technologies often leading to dead-ends and re-training. It is amazing how much you learn doing one thing directly translates to another, it can often lead to you not having a specific/narrow mindset too.

Having an LLM next to you means there is never a stupid question, I ask the AI the same stupid questions repeatedly until I get it, that is not really possible with a smart human, even if they have the patience, you are often afraid to look dumb in their eyes.

I'm worried about being replaced by LLM. If it keeps evolving to the point where a CTO can ask LLM to do something and deploy it, why he would pay for a team of engineers?

Forking to different technologies and languages is one thing (I've been there, I started with PHP and I haven't touch it for almost a decade now), but being replaced by a new tech is something different. I don't see how I could pivot to still be useful.

I see it more as “if an LLM can do that, why would I need an employer?”

This coin has two sides. If a CTO can live without you, you can live without an expensive buffer between you and your clients. He’s now just a guy like you, and adds little value compared to everyone else.

I know what you mean but I don't see it positive either. If each engineer is now a startup, it will be extra complicated to make money.

It's like saying since all of us know how to write, we all can sell books.

Where in reality can a CTO talk to a human and deploy it? It takes engineers to understand the requirements and to iterate with the CTO. The CTO has better things to do with their time than wrestle with an LLM all day.

I guarentee that the first thought in any good CTO's mind in that world is "How much payroll do computer babysitters deserve?"

They ask that already.

Right now we're trained computer masseuses, not yet computer babysitters.

And to torture the analogy further since Im already in this rabbit hole, masseuses and babysitters probably have to put in the same amount of effort in their work.

I think the replacement for developers won't be CTOs but program managers -- folks with business degrees (or none at all) but who understand the company's needs for the software and can translate them into prompts to build the product without any understanding of how to code. (Some places call these folks 'software anthropologists'.) They'll hone the product iteratively though development almost like a genetic algorithm would, by trial and error -- rejecting or revising the output verbally (and eventually by interacting with components seen on the screen). Vibe programming by business types will replace today's software engineers.

I could not disagree more. Those concepts, theories and all that knowledge is what makes it so powerful. I feel successful with AI because I know what to do (I’m older than you by a lot). I talk to younger people and they don’t know how to think about a big system or have the ability to communicate their strategies. You do. I’m 72 and was bored. Now that Claude will do the drudgery, I am inspired.

I understand your point of view and I do agree that with the current state of affairs I am kind of OK. It's useful for me, and I am still needed.

But seeing the progress and adoption, I wonder what will happen when that valuable skill (how to think about a big system, etc) will also be replicated by AI. and then, poof.

I doubt that AI will ever figure out 'what to do' since it doesn't have a body and can't get out in the world.

But, if it does, I will go the way of all those buggy whip makers and find something else to do. (And it will probably be doing something with AI.)

I certainly feel uneasy. To whatever extent “AI” fulfills its promise of enabling regular people to get computers to do exactly what needs doing, that’s the extent that the “priest class” like me who knows how to decide what’s feasible and design a good system to do it, will be made redundant. I guess I hope it moves slowly enough that I can get enough years in on easy mode (this current stage where technical people can easily 5-10x their previous output by leveraging the AI tools ourselves).

But if the advancement moves too slowly, we will have some serious pipeline problems filling senior engineer positions, caused by the destruction that AI (combined with the end of ZIRP) has caused to job prospects for entry level software engineers.

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