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No. I was a JavaScript programmer for 15 years. I should have left that line of work more than 10 years ago, but I was really good at it. The problem is that
by austin-cheney 3y ago
No. I was a JavaScript programmer for 15 years. I should have left that line of work more than 10 years ago, but I was really good at it. The problem is that the industry baseline for competence is exceptionally low, so the longer I remained doing that work the more incompatible I became. I was laid off last year and desperate for employment so I could pay my bills, but I was also patient.
I am in a different line of work now. In this new line of work the business challenges are greater but the technical challenges are less challenging. I am essentially starting over so at the moment the technical challenges are still plenty challenging for me.
I still enjoy writing JavaScript for personal applications, but I will never go back to that line of work. Its an industry where the least competent dominate the hiring requirements because nobody wants to invest in formal training, so everything is a race to the bottom. AI can replace 90% of those overpaid unqualified people and the world will be better off enjoying faster and more secure products at far lower costs.
- gaws 3y ago> I am in a different line of work now. In this new line of work the business challenges are greater but the technical challenges are less challenging. I am essentially starting over so at the moment the technical challenges are still plenty challenging for me. What are you doing now exactly?
- austin-cheney 3y agoEnterprise API management.
- begueradj 3y agoYour last paragraph is scary :)
- austin-cheney 3y agoIt shouldn’t be. If 90% of your work force is ready for replacement by AI, given the immature state of AI, something has fundamentally failed. Perhaps the greatest failure is in perceptions of originality. A transportation engineer primarily works through communicating original ideas in the forms of drafts, papers, models, and so forth. Contrast that to a mechanic that changes oil, rotates tires, and flushes your transmission. Mechanics do work that is not original. Most software developers want to call themselves engineers and yet their first fear is originality. You will hear that expressed as reinventing a wheel. These are mechanics, not engineers. Sure, there are senior mechanics that can repair transmissions and rebuild engines, but that still does not rise to the level of engineering. Software does not formalize what defines a senior or an engineer. The result is a lot of unqualified people wearing lofty labels, Dunning-Kruger. Ultimately, what matters is what you produce but for most developers things produced not by strangers are not worthy of trust.