samyoualljaxuhn t1_j9ln9td wrote on February 22, 2023 at 9:34 PM

Reply to comment by Nedshent in Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates says the rise of AI poses a threat to Google's search engine profit by Nsaxon

Interesting take although I wouldn’t put art generation and software development in the same category.

Nedshent t1_j9lsrid wrote on February 22, 2023 at 10:08 PM

I didn't really, only in the sense that the 'human' element required for both sectors is overblown in both. I've been writing software for a long time now so I am happy to make that claim for software, and the art one is becoming quite evident.

samyoualljaxuhn t1_j9ltvel wrote on February 22, 2023 at 10:16 PM

Fair enough :) I’m a software engineer and disagree about what I am presuming you’re saying is our obsolescence? I have only been employed as a software engineer for a year and a half so you’re more likely to be right than me! I’m really looking forward to what the future brings but I see our jobs evolving and not dissolving

Nedshent t1_j9m2840 wrote on February 22, 2023 at 11:10 PM

I'd never use language as strong as obsolescence, I think that software engineering roles will be some of the last to go. A lot of the work people do in web development will be fairly quick to go though, and it will go the same way us as software engineers reduce the need for labour in other sectors. For most roles it won't be one fell swoop where a machine replaces you 1:1, it will be enhanced efficiency that means you need less engineers for the same job. I don't think it will be very long before most front end jobs will be replaced by UX/UI people that can input their desires into the tools they already use and the code is then generated for them. For backend jobs, your basic API development that is pulling data from a DB will also dry up. For web development I think it's a good bet to get into roles where you are generating insights into the data your org works with. There will also be integration work that lasts a lot longer than the two easy wins I mentioned.

At the end of your day, we'll still be very necessary, but the job market will become a lot more competitive as the number of engineers required is reduced.

el1teman t1_j9noa8x wrote on February 23, 2023 at 7:12 AM

I'm learning software development, what would you recommend to get into to have some what safer future in terms of job security?

Nedshent t1_j9nwin7 wrote on February 23, 2023 at 9:00 AM

Take everything I say with a huge grain of salt and do a good amount of your own research, but my advice would be to just take a holistic approach if you want to enter web development. Learn the full stack including what the cloud providers offer. If you're still in school I recommend picking up some networking and also some more mathematics classes if you can. Developing an intuitive understanding of what the different cloud providers offer before you even touch them will be a boon to your career. Don't get trapped being 'DevOps', but absolutely be able to do the job of a DevOps person, deploy your personal projects into Azure, AWS or GCP. Also get some experience in setting up your own CI/CD pipelines. I'm not sure how they're teaching things in school now days, but learn the difference between imperative and declarative code and aim for declarative, web development is moving toward FP and getting a head start on that paradigm while you're learning will help you hit the ground running with modern JS codebases and component based front end frameworks. I can't go into too much detail here but it's important to understand how declarative code and immutable data in a FP paradigm relates to parallel cloud computing, but also understand that you're not likely to get a job utilizing those skills as a graduate. These are just things to keep in mind while you cut your teeth as a full stack developer, and also don't be scared, there is still a great deal of time to be able to cut your teeth as a full stack dev.

The biggest take away is to just work on your fundamentals and become a great engineer, don't get caught up thinking that a certain tech stack is your ticket to continued employment. This will set you up to be able to transition into roles as the industry continues to evolve even if all of my assumptions here are wrong.

el1teman t1_j9nzmvs wrote on February 23, 2023 at 9:45 AM

Thanks for the detailed reply

I am still wiggling which exact route for my career to take but as you said is work on fundamentals and become a great engineer. If I can be one then I can easily learn new technologies and adapt to the current market/needs