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Ask HN: Software Engineer career switch

2 points by bsvalley 8y ago

Why isn’t there a company out there that offers a career switch for software engineers? Not only the amount of people who’d like to move away from coding or tech in general (burnt out, no motivation, etc.), but more importantly the increase of AI. Coding will be done by machines in a near future. Which means a lot of software engineers will be out of work. Is it too pretentious to say that problem solving in general is a valuable skill?

anoncoward111 8y ago
I venture my guess: Transitioning to a business role is all about connections. There is very little skill involved (MBA, years of experience, etc etc are not particularly meaningful except for middle management roles at major corporations, which still hire mostly on nepotism) And why would one move away from software eng? It's going to be decades before it is automated away. We still have cashiers and waiters despite both professions being nearly ready for complete roboticization and automation. Trust me, stay where the money is. The grass isn't greener, unless someone is offering you tons of money to be in the c-suite of a massive business for some reason.
davismwfl 8y ago
Simple, the demand is not away from software engineering it is to it. And whether you agree with the politics of the situation the fact is software engineering demand within the US will likely grow, not shrink, at least anytime soon. With less foreign visa's being awarded it will likely drive demand higher for qualified engineers/developers. The pessimist view is company's will offshore entire projects more, but that is unlikely as well, since more and more company's are bringing work back to the U.S. because of the challenges and IP issues that offshoring work brings. AI is not going to automate away engineering tasks anytime soon. Sure, some mundane things will be done faster, but essentially it will be the work that is easiest to pick off and the work that most engineers hate doing anyway. So I say bring that on. Now if you want out of engineering (which is totally reasonable), find a passion and figure out a way to get involved/make money at it, but don't use AI as an excuse why it makes sense. There is no company offering services to transition engineers out of roles because there is no demand. And usually when there is demand for that type of stuff, it happens at the local levels, through either small companies or the local colleges/universities. Even if you are just starting out, you can have a complete career and retire before Software engineering will disappear in any meaningful way. I've been doing this for over 20 years, and frankly engineers (and some other professionals) are a paranoid group as a whole. I have seen many "ends" of software engineering come and go and yet it keeps growing and demand has gone up and salaries have finally started an upward trend again over the past few years. Of course, this is just my opinion, I am sure you can find a pessimist in the crowd who will say the sky is falling and get out now while you can.
- bsvalley 8y ago
  I don’t fully disagree but I think it’s short term thinking. Some companies emerge out of the current demand, but a lot of other companies do work on future problems way ahead of time. SpaceX is a great example, openAI is an even better example. When it comes to AI we’re looking at a 10-15 year window before it reaches its full potential. Will it become “harmful” to people? We don’t know, but the use of AI in our industries will certainly be driven by the increase in productivity, increase in revenue and decrease in cost. Thinking everything is going to be “just fine” for a while sounds a little naive to me. Employees are resources and a business needs resources. Thinking that a business would utilize the least optimized resource by paying the highest price doesn’t make any sense. If AI can debug your code today, fine, that’s awesome, you could focus on solving better problems... But how about in 10 years from now? Will it debug its own code? I think it’s an interesting question to ask - what will happen to software development in 15 years from now? From 1990 to 2000 we got the Internet, it has disrupted the way we work. From 2000 until today, nothing revolutionary came to life. Electric cars? Crypto? Unfortunately the last 20 years have been very flat and secured minus a few recessions or automations within various industries. I wouldn't relate too much on that. Tomorrow could still bring something completely different than yesterday. Again, this is my "critical" way of thinking. It might sound a little dark sometimes I agree ;)

2 points by bsvalley 8y ago

anoncoward111 8y ago

I venture my guess: Transitioning to a business role is all about connections. There is very little skill involved (MBA, years of experience, etc etc are not particularly meaningful except for middle management roles at major corporations, which still hire mostly on nepotism) And why would one move away from software eng? It's going to be decades before it is automated away. We still have cashiers and waiters despite both professions being nearly ready for complete roboticization and automation. Trust me, stay where the money is. The grass isn't greener, unless someone is offering you tons of money to be in the c-suite of a massive business for some reason.

davismwfl 8y ago

Simple, the demand is not away from software engineering it is to it. And whether you agree with the politics of the situation the fact is software engineering demand within the US will likely grow, not shrink, at least anytime soon. With less foreign visa's being awarded it will likely drive demand higher for qualified engineers/developers. The pessimist view is company's will offshore entire projects more, but that is unlikely as well, since more and more company's are bringing work back to the U.S. because of the challenges and IP issues that offshoring work brings. AI is not going to automate away engineering tasks anytime soon. Sure, some mundane things will be done faster, but essentially it will be the work that is easiest to pick off and the work that most engineers hate doing anyway. So I say bring that on. Now if you want out of engineering (which is totally reasonable), find a passion and figure out a way to get involved/make money at it, but don't use AI as an excuse why it makes sense. There is no company offering services to transition engineers out of roles because there is no demand. And usually when there is demand for that type of stuff, it happens at the local levels, through either small companies or the local colleges/universities. Even if you are just starting out, you can have a complete career and retire before Software engineering will disappear in any meaningful way. I've been doing this for over 20 years, and frankly engineers (and some other professionals) are a paranoid group as a whole. I have seen many "ends" of software engineering come and go and yet it keeps growing and demand has gone up and salaries have finally started an upward trend again over the past few years. Of course, this is just my opinion, I am sure you can find a pessimist in the crowd who will say the sky is falling and get out now while you can.

bsvalley 8y ago
I don’t fully disagree but I think it’s short term thinking. Some companies emerge out of the current demand, but a lot of other companies do work on future problems way ahead of time. SpaceX is a great example, openAI is an even better example. When it comes to AI we’re looking at a 10-15 year window before it reaches its full potential. Will it become “harmful” to people? We don’t know, but the use of AI in our industries will certainly be driven by the increase in productivity, increase in revenue and decrease in cost. Thinking everything is going to be “just fine” for a while sounds a little naive to me. Employees are resources and a business needs resources. Thinking that a business would utilize the least optimized resource by paying the highest price doesn’t make any sense. If AI can debug your code today, fine, that’s awesome, you could focus on solving better problems... But how about in 10 years from now? Will it debug its own code? I think it’s an interesting question to ask - what will happen to software development in 15 years from now? From 1990 to 2000 we got the Internet, it has disrupted the way we work. From 2000 until today, nothing revolutionary came to life. Electric cars? Crypto? Unfortunately the last 20 years have been very flat and secured minus a few recessions or automations within various industries. I wouldn't relate too much on that. Tomorrow could still bring something completely different than yesterday. Again, this is my "critical" way of thinking. It might sound a little dark sometimes I agree ;)