14 ms·

Is anyone instantly suspicious when they introduce themselves these days an "AI Developer"

noch 2y ago
> Is anyone instantly suspicious when they introduce themselves these days an "AI Developer" I'm only suspicious if they don't simultaneously and eagerly show me their Github so that I can see what they've accomplished.
- llm_nerd 2y ago
  Of the great developers I have worked with in real life, across a large number of projects and workplaces, very few have any Github presence. Most don't even have LinkedIn. They usually don't have any online presence at all: No blog with regular updates. No Twitter presence full of hot takes. Sometimes this industry is a lot like the "finance" industry: People struggling for credibility talk about it constantly, everywhere. They flex and bloviate and look for surrogates for accomplishments wherever they can be found. Peacocking on github, writing yet another tutorial on what tokens are and how embeddings work, etc. That obviously doesn't mean in all cases, and there are loads of stellar talents that have a strong online presence. But by itself it is close to meaningless, and my experience is that it is usually a negative indicator.
  - JSDevOps 2y ago
    If someone has to tell you either themselves of by proxy they are influential in the industry ... they are not.
  - noch 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - llm_nerd 2y ago
      >Saying "GitHub" is just a way of saying: "Show me what you've accomplished." Do you actually think all development happens in public GitHub repos? Do you even think a majority does? Even a strong minority? Across a number of enormous, well-known projects I've worked on, covering many thousands of contributors, including several very well known names, 0% of it exists in public Github repos. The overwhelming bulk of development is happening in the shadows. If your "field" is "open source software", then sure. But if you're confused into thinking Github -- at least the tiny fraction that you can see -- is "the field" of software development or even just generally providing solutions, I can understand your weird belief about this.
      - noch 2y ago
        [flagged]
      - noch 2y ago
        > Do you actually think all development happens in public GitHub repos? Do you even think a majority does? Even a strong minority? Do you think everyone you encounter is an idiot who just learned about the Internet yesterday? I started programming long before Github or Sourceforge even existed so given that all your assumptions about who you're talking to are so full of bad faith, I can only assume you have a chip on your shoulder and you don't know how to read what I wrote previously.
    - kazinator 2y ago
      > It's really not that difficult to show what you've accomplished if you claim to be in a field. Actually it is incredibly difficult, because you no longer have access to your previous employers' code bases and even if you do, it is illegal for you to show it to anyone.
      - noch 2y ago
        > Actually it is incredibly difficult, because you no longer have access to your previous employers' code bases. So the person never does anything outside of his employer's IP? That's unfortunate, but as a heuristic, I'd like to see stuff that the person has done if they claim to be in a field. Perhaps other people don't care, and will be convinced by expertise without evidence, but I'm busy, and my life is hard enough already: show me your code or gtfo. :-)
        kazinator 2y ago
        Newsflash: the majority of working, paid developers do not do any programming outside of their employer's IP. Someone who worked on successful projects that shipped and are still out there, they can point you to that. You can buy the app, or device with their embedded code, or use the website or whatever. Not always an option for everyone, or not all the time. That's one reason why there are skill tests in interviews. And why people ask for, and contact, references. Public code can't be trusted. If you make that the yardstick for hiring people, then everyone and his dog will spin up some phony github repo with stuff that can't be confirmed to have been written by them. Goodhart's Law and all that. You have no idea how much help someone had with the code in their github repo, or to what extent it is cribbed from somewhere else. Enter AI into the picture now, too.
        noch 2y ago
        [flagged]
        kazinator 2y ago
        > The author can either explain it or doesn't understand it. I've never been challenged to explain any of the code my CV points to. I could have made it all up. If they randomly asked about something I have not looked at in a long a while, it could actually look like I don't know it! There is so much of it that I would have to study the code as a full time activity to be able to fluently spout off about any random sample of it. I think I'm going to rearrange my resume to move the free software stuff farther down and maybe shorten it. It could come across as a negative. Some hiring people genuinely don't understand why someone would put in a 40 hour week and then do some more on evenings and weekends. Well, I don't know how many. In my career I heard something along those lines from around two. Not everyone will tell you. > You left college or high-school and walked straight into a job then learned to code there, or what? It doesn't describe me, but does almost everyone I've ever known in the field (other than distant strangers met through online free-software-related channels, who are an obviously biased sample).
    - taway1874 2y ago
      This is exactly what we're talking about here and you are proving our point.
  - bilbo0s 2y ago
    I’ve found this to be especially true of the great business minded devs that I’ve come across. They’re not giving you crap for free. Pardon my French.
    - 0points 2y ago
      It's spelled crêpe
  - jchw 2y ago
    I think the actual truth is somewhere halfway. Hard to not have any GitHub presence if you use enough open source projects, since you can't even report bugs to many of them without an account. But if you mostly mean in the sense that they don't have a fancy GitHub profile with a ton of followers... I agree, that does seem to be the case. LinkedIn on the other hand... I sincerely can't imagine networking on LinkedIn being a fraction as useful as networking... Well, at work. For anyone that has a decent enough resume LinkedIn is basically only useful if you want a gutter trash news feed and to be spammed by dubious job offers 24/7. Could be wrong, but I'm starting to think you should really only stoop to LinkedIn in moments of desperation...
    - mitchitized 2y ago
      As a hiring manager LinkedIn profiles are a huge window into someone's professional side, just like github may be a huge window into their technical side. As a candidate I think LinkedIn is absolute trash - and toxic with all the ghost jobs and dark patterns. Feels like everyone else has the same opinion, or at the very least it is a common one. But when I have 50 candidates to review for 5 open positions, LinkedIn is going to give me great insight that I cannot really get anywhere else. I keep my profile current in the hopes that I'm not doing it for LinkedIn, but for the person researching me to see if I am a valid candidate for their role.
      - namaria 2y ago
        "Linkedin is trash but I use it as a signal source" is kinda telling on yourself there bud.
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      coding since the ‘90’s - do not have a github account at all that I ever used for anything. of the top say 10 people I have ever worked with not a single one has a github account. there is an entire industry of devs who work on meaningful projects, independently or for an employer who solve amazing problems and do amazing sh*t none of which is public or will ever be public. I have signed more NDAs in my career than I have commits in public repos :)
  - taway1874 2y ago
    Well said! Have you seen the titles and summary of those LinkedIn profiles? Not an ounce of humility. I'm afraid it's only going to get worse with "AI".
deleted 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago
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pjmlp 2y ago
Yes, just like "Data Engineer" for knowing how to use Tableau or doing OLAP queries.
- valval 2y ago
  To be fair, the market dictates the job titles.
- Ldragon27 2y ago
  Are you saying that true Data Engineers typically do more than just use Tableau or run OLAP queries, or do you see the title 'Data Engineer' itself as a bit of a red flag these days? I’m pretty early in my career and was leaning toward Data Engineering, but hearing stuff like this makes me wonder if going for SWE might be smarter.
  - hobs 2y ago
    The better paying role is a Backend SWE (usually). A really a good data engineer is just a Backend SWE who has specific experience. A bad one is a SQL analyst whose been promoted too much.
    - bubbleRefuge 2y ago
      as as data engieer/data architect , agreed. there are allot of 'tools' experts who are data engineers but can't code a lick.
      - hobs 2y ago
        Yep, that's where I am at - the amount of times people have talked to me about the most recent podcast where they've heard how a new tool will solve all their problems and really its some samey mix of CDC and bad python+sql is... a lot. I think there's not a ton of political palatability for realizing most of their projects are like one API and a sane use of some SQL away.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
0points 2y ago
Instant red flag. Like "Scrum master" used to be back in the day.
- amelius 2y ago
  "AI engineer" is the new "Web developer".
- moffkalast 2y ago
  I prefer the term "Scrumlord" /s
  - 1123581321 2y ago
    There are some funny comments that use that term. This one’s my favorite. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25721837 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25721837
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  > back in the day Well, most are called "project manager" now. But it would still be a giant red flag, just like the project manager job title or even worse, using PM so you don't know exactly what it means.
master-lincoln 2y ago
I would interpret that as somebody working on ML algorithms and architectures, not somebody developing a product that uses some form of AI at runtime...
- spmurrayzzz 2y ago
  I haven't seen this sort of work called AI Developer yet, but I may have missed the trend shift. Isn't the convention for this still to use the title of Machine Learning Engineer (MLE)?
  - master-lincoln 2y ago
    There is another thread here that seems to confirm it's me who has missed a trend shift. I didn't know this term had a special meaning. I just followed the thought that an x-developer is somebody developing x.
    - throwaway290 2y ago
      They use "AI" like they use "Python" in "Python developer" or "Web" in "Web developer".
- JohnFen 2y ago
  I work on such a team, and we don't refer to ourselves as "AI engineers". We're devs working on developing deep learning systems (but not genAI).
  - swyx 2y ago
    correct - but "developing a product that uses some form of AI at runtime" is a job that people do and the community has consolidated around "AI engineer" as shorthand https://www.latent.space/p/ai-engineer https://www.latent.space/p/ai-engineer i argue that its useful to have these shorthands to quickly understand what people do. its not so nice to just be default suspicious at a perhaps lower-technical-difficulty job that nevertheless a lot of comapnies want and a lot of people do
wrs 2y ago
I’m instantly suspicious when anyone uses the term “AI”.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  in 2024 thats as crazy as being suspicious of anyone that uses the term “internet”
  - taway1874 2y ago
    No, it's not crazy at all. Back in the early noughts everyone was associating themselves with Internet and WorldWideWeb (yes, they used to spell that out). Same thing happening today with AI. It is irritating ...
  - wrs 2y ago
    I guess your perception depends on how many tech hype cycles you’ve lived through. I’ve lived through three for “AI” alone.
    - 8338550bff96 2y ago
      Who cares what it is called? I care about the capabilities. In my experience when people say things like this what they're just projecting insecurity
- ocular-rockular 2y ago
  You would be surprised how many people have no idea what "machine learning" means (not even technical definition but just as in the field). I'm working on a PhD in an adjacent field and basically have to tell people I work in AI for them to have any semblance of what I do.
  - namaria 2y ago
    I don't think telling people that have no idea what machine learning is that you work with 'AI' is giving them any semblance of understanding what you do.
woodson 2y ago
I say “I work in machine learning, what kids these days call AI” ;).

noch 2y ago

> Is anyone instantly suspicious when they introduce themselves these days an "AI Developer" I'm only suspicious if they don't simultaneously and eagerly show me their Github so that I can see what they've accomplished.

llm_nerd 2y ago
Of the great developers I have worked with in real life, across a large number of projects and workplaces, very few have any Github presence. Most don't even have LinkedIn. They usually don't have any online presence at all: No blog with regular updates. No Twitter presence full of hot takes. Sometimes this industry is a lot like the "finance" industry: People struggling for credibility talk about it constantly, everywhere. They flex and bloviate and look for surrogates for accomplishments wherever they can be found. Peacocking on github, writing yet another tutorial on what tokens are and how embeddings work, etc. That obviously doesn't mean in all cases, and there are loads of stellar talents that have a strong online presence. But by itself it is close to meaningless, and my experience is that it is usually a negative indicator.
- JSDevOps 2y ago
  If someone has to tell you either themselves of by proxy they are influential in the industry ... they are not.
- noch 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - llm_nerd 2y ago
    >Saying "GitHub" is just a way of saying: "Show me what you've accomplished." Do you actually think all development happens in public GitHub repos? Do you even think a majority does? Even a strong minority? Across a number of enormous, well-known projects I've worked on, covering many thousands of contributors, including several very well known names, 0% of it exists in public Github repos. The overwhelming bulk of development is happening in the shadows. If your "field" is "open source software", then sure. But if you're confused into thinking Github -- at least the tiny fraction that you can see -- is "the field" of software development or even just generally providing solutions, I can understand your weird belief about this.
    - noch 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - noch 2y ago
      > Do you actually think all development happens in public GitHub repos? Do you even think a majority does? Even a strong minority? Do you think everyone you encounter is an idiot who just learned about the Internet yesterday? I started programming long before Github or Sourceforge even existed so given that all your assumptions about who you're talking to are so full of bad faith, I can only assume you have a chip on your shoulder and you don't know how to read what I wrote previously.
  - kazinator 2y ago
    > It's really not that difficult to show what you've accomplished if you claim to be in a field. Actually it is incredibly difficult, because you no longer have access to your previous employers' code bases and even if you do, it is illegal for you to show it to anyone.
    - noch 2y ago
      > Actually it is incredibly difficult, because you no longer have access to your previous employers' code bases. So the person never does anything outside of his employer's IP? That's unfortunate, but as a heuristic, I'd like to see stuff that the person has done if they claim to be in a field. Perhaps other people don't care, and will be convinced by expertise without evidence, but I'm busy, and my life is hard enough already: show me your code or gtfo. :-)
      - kazinator 2y ago
        Newsflash: the majority of working, paid developers do not do any programming outside of their employer's IP. Someone who worked on successful projects that shipped and are still out there, they can point you to that. You can buy the app, or device with their embedded code, or use the website or whatever. Not always an option for everyone, or not all the time. That's one reason why there are skill tests in interviews. And why people ask for, and contact, references. Public code can't be trusted. If you make that the yardstick for hiring people, then everyone and his dog will spin up some phony github repo with stuff that can't be confirmed to have been written by them. Goodhart's Law and all that. You have no idea how much help someone had with the code in their github repo, or to what extent it is cribbed from somewhere else. Enter AI into the picture now, too.
        noch 2y ago
        [flagged]
        kazinator 2y ago
        > The author can either explain it or doesn't understand it. I've never been challenged to explain any of the code my CV points to. I could have made it all up. If they randomly asked about something I have not looked at in a long a while, it could actually look like I don't know it! There is so much of it that I would have to study the code as a full time activity to be able to fluently spout off about any random sample of it. I think I'm going to rearrange my resume to move the free software stuff farther down and maybe shorten it. It could come across as a negative. Some hiring people genuinely don't understand why someone would put in a 40 hour week and then do some more on evenings and weekends. Well, I don't know how many. In my career I heard something along those lines from around two. Not everyone will tell you. > You left college or high-school and walked straight into a job then learned to code there, or what? It doesn't describe me, but does almost everyone I've ever known in the field (other than distant strangers met through online free-software-related channels, who are an obviously biased sample).
  - taway1874 2y ago
    This is exactly what we're talking about here and you are proving our point.
- bilbo0s 2y ago
  I’ve found this to be especially true of the great business minded devs that I’ve come across. They’re not giving you crap for free. Pardon my French.
  - 0points 2y ago
    It's spelled crêpe
- jchw 2y ago
  I think the actual truth is somewhere halfway. Hard to not have any GitHub presence if you use enough open source projects, since you can't even report bugs to many of them without an account. But if you mostly mean in the sense that they don't have a fancy GitHub profile with a ton of followers... I agree, that does seem to be the case. LinkedIn on the other hand... I sincerely can't imagine networking on LinkedIn being a fraction as useful as networking... Well, at work. For anyone that has a decent enough resume LinkedIn is basically only useful if you want a gutter trash news feed and to be spammed by dubious job offers 24/7. Could be wrong, but I'm starting to think you should really only stoop to LinkedIn in moments of desperation...
  - mitchitized 2y ago
    As a hiring manager LinkedIn profiles are a huge window into someone's professional side, just like github may be a huge window into their technical side. As a candidate I think LinkedIn is absolute trash - and toxic with all the ghost jobs and dark patterns. Feels like everyone else has the same opinion, or at the very least it is a common one. But when I have 50 candidates to review for 5 open positions, LinkedIn is going to give me great insight that I cannot really get anywhere else. I keep my profile current in the hopes that I'm not doing it for LinkedIn, but for the person researching me to see if I am a valid candidate for their role.
    - namaria 2y ago
      "Linkedin is trash but I use it as a signal source" is kinda telling on yourself there bud.
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    coding since the ‘90’s - do not have a github account at all that I ever used for anything. of the top say 10 people I have ever worked with not a single one has a github account. there is an entire industry of devs who work on meaningful projects, independently or for an employer who solve amazing problems and do amazing sh*t none of which is public or will ever be public. I have signed more NDAs in my career than I have commits in public repos :)
- taway1874 2y ago
  Well said! Have you seen the titles and summary of those LinkedIn profiles? Not an ounce of humility. I'm afraid it's only going to get worse with "AI".

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

pjmlp 2y ago

Yes, just like "Data Engineer" for knowing how to use Tableau or doing OLAP queries.

valval 2y ago
To be fair, the market dictates the job titles.
Ldragon27 2y ago
Are you saying that true Data Engineers typically do more than just use Tableau or run OLAP queries, or do you see the title 'Data Engineer' itself as a bit of a red flag these days? I’m pretty early in my career and was leaning toward Data Engineering, but hearing stuff like this makes me wonder if going for SWE might be smarter.
- hobs 2y ago
  The better paying role is a Backend SWE (usually). A really a good data engineer is just a Backend SWE who has specific experience. A bad one is a SQL analyst whose been promoted too much.
  - bubbleRefuge 2y ago
    as as data engieer/data architect , agreed. there are allot of 'tools' experts who are data engineers but can't code a lick.
    - hobs 2y ago
      Yep, that's where I am at - the amount of times people have talked to me about the most recent podcast where they've heard how a new tool will solve all their problems and really its some samey mix of CDC and bad python+sql is... a lot. I think there's not a ton of political palatability for realizing most of their projects are like one API and a sane use of some SQL away.
- pjmlp 2y ago

0points 2y ago

Instant red flag. Like "Scrum master" used to be back in the day.

amelius 2y ago
"AI engineer" is the new "Web developer".
moffkalast 2y ago
I prefer the term "Scrumlord" /s
- 1123581321 2y ago
  There are some funny comments that use that term. This one’s my favorite. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25721837 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25721837
marcosdumay 2y ago
> back in the day Well, most are called "project manager" now. But it would still be a giant red flag, just like the project manager job title or even worse, using PM so you don't know exactly what it means.

master-lincoln 2y ago

I would interpret that as somebody working on ML algorithms and architectures, not somebody developing a product that uses some form of AI at runtime...

spmurrayzzz 2y ago
I haven't seen this sort of work called AI Developer yet, but I may have missed the trend shift. Isn't the convention for this still to use the title of Machine Learning Engineer (MLE)?
- master-lincoln 2y ago
  There is another thread here that seems to confirm it's me who has missed a trend shift. I didn't know this term had a special meaning. I just followed the thought that an x-developer is somebody developing x.
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    They use "AI" like they use "Python" in "Python developer" or "Web" in "Web developer".
JohnFen 2y ago
I work on such a team, and we don't refer to ourselves as "AI engineers". We're devs working on developing deep learning systems (but not genAI).
- swyx 2y ago
  correct - but "developing a product that uses some form of AI at runtime" is a job that people do and the community has consolidated around "AI engineer" as shorthand https://www.latent.space/p/ai-engineer https://www.latent.space/p/ai-engineer i argue that its useful to have these shorthands to quickly understand what people do. its not so nice to just be default suspicious at a perhaps lower-technical-difficulty job that nevertheless a lot of comapnies want and a lot of people do

wrs 2y ago

I’m instantly suspicious when anyone uses the term “AI”.

bdangubic 2y ago
in 2024 thats as crazy as being suspicious of anyone that uses the term “internet”
- taway1874 2y ago
  No, it's not crazy at all. Back in the early noughts everyone was associating themselves with Internet and WorldWideWeb (yes, they used to spell that out). Same thing happening today with AI. It is irritating ...
- wrs 2y ago
  I guess your perception depends on how many tech hype cycles you’ve lived through. I’ve lived through three for “AI” alone.
  - 8338550bff96 2y ago
    Who cares what it is called? I care about the capabilities. In my experience when people say things like this what they're just projecting insecurity
ocular-rockular 2y ago
You would be surprised how many people have no idea what "machine learning" means (not even technical definition but just as in the field). I'm working on a PhD in an adjacent field and basically have to tell people I work in AI for them to have any semblance of what I do.
- namaria 2y ago
  I don't think telling people that have no idea what machine learning is that you work with 'AI' is giving them any semblance of understanding what you do.

woodson 2y ago

I say “I work in machine learning, what kids these days call AI” ;).