Comment by mkozlows
3 months ago
Yeah, this seriously drives me nuts.
That meeting that you spent an hour in to understand the requirements? You don't need that meeting if you're not writing the code. That sync up with the QA engineer you did to hand it off to them? Don't need that meeting if you're not writing the code. That half hour you spent installing vim extensions? Don't need 'em if you don't open vim anymore.
There are engineers whose jobs go well beyond coding, of course. Staff engineers and principal engineers have had their jobs radically change because of AI, but not because it's writing all their code.
But there are also a lot of engineers -- your standard mid-level engineer, or even senior engineers at a lot of orgs with title inflation -- whose job is almost entirely about delivering code, and who spend all day either writing code or engaging in scaffolding around code-writing activities. Let's not pretend that automating away that code writing is a 15% boost.
> That meeting that you spent an hour in to understand the requirements? You don't need that meeting if you're not writing the code.
How are you going to prompt the LLM or validate its output if you don't understand the requirements?
In some number of cases, the business partner who would have passed you the requirements will just generate the code themselves.. I’m shocked shin some engineers don’t see a massive disruption coming..
Oh, some of us see a massive disruption coming, just maybe not in the way you think.
Talented, experienced devs leaving the field out of disgust would be pretty disruptive.
Crumbling, faulty technical infrastructure with unmanageable heaps of AI slop that no one understands would definitely disrupt businesses.
Skill atrophy, and an entire generation of "developers" that have never actually written code will be disruptive when something breaks and no one knows how to fix it (this isn't a hypothetical, I'm seeing this phenomenon in a lot of large enterprise groups).
The total elimination of novel solutions, new ideas and new approaches to development and the resulting industry wide stagnation won't be disruptive, but will certainly be a drag.
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Is this actually happening anywhere in a medium-large business with an established product and real customers?
Sure, but why doesn't said business partner just give a requirement to the AI to do the business partner's own job? Since it is hypothetically superhuman at fulfilling requirements at such a point...
PMs seem pretty easy to replace. In fact, given any single role to fixate on, it's probably replaceable
> In some number of cases, the business partner who would have passed you the requirements will just generate the code themselves.. I’m shocked shin some engineers don’t see a massive disruption coming..
It’s because you are engaging in first-order thinking. You imagine the immediate result which is that software engineers are replaced.
If you engaged in second-order thinking you would realize that if software engineers can be replaced, _any_ work can eventually be automated. So why stress about it, we’ll figure out a replacement for capitalism. It seems like the world is starting the slow swing to the left so eventually the problem will be solved.
Of course might be those engineers you mention are engaged in no thinking.
Your PM can write the ticket, and your QA can test the output.
I think we would, at some point realize that the roles of PM and QA are best done by an LLM, while coding is left to humans.
So an 180 from the current coding-automation frenzy..
>> How are you going to prompt the LLM or validate its output if you don't understand the requirements?
> Your PM can write the ticket, and your QA can test the output.
If your PM can write the ticket and your QA can test the output, why not cut out the middleman by having the PM write the coding agent prompt(s)?
And if your PM can write the coding agent prompt(s), why not cut out the QA group by having the PM write the verification prompt(s)?
And if your PM can write those prompts, why not cut out the PM and have your CSRs write the feature request/verification prompts?
And if your CSRs can write the feature request/verification prompts, why not cut them out and have the organization's customers write the feature request along with acceptance prompts?
And if customers can write those prompts, why would they pay you?
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I am responsible for a software that carries a multi billions company.
My mates are not, their code editor are not either : I am.
Yes, I could be a clown and be accountable for something I know nothing about. I choose not to.
Not everybody is a cruft-engineer .