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I made good money cleaning up after the 2000s outsourcing boom. It was lucrative cleaning up shit code from Romania and India. I'm hoping enough people churn

I made good money cleaning up after the 2000s outsourcing boom. It was lucrative cleaning up shit code from Romania and India. I'm hoping enough people churn out enough hot garbage that needs fixing now that I can jack up my day rate. I remember when the West would have no coders because Indian coders are cheaper. I remember when nocode solutions would replace programmers. I remember.

ethagnawl 2y ago
If you missed this recent post, I think you'll appreciate it: https://defragzone.substack.com/p/techs-dumbest-mistake-why-firing https://defragzone.substack.com/p/techs-dumbest-mistake-why-... > Now, let’s talk about the real winners in all this: the programmers who saw the chaos coming and refused to play along. The ones who didn’t take FAANG jobs but instead went deep into systems programming, AI interpretability, or high-performance computing. These are the people who actually understand technology at a level no AI can replicate. > And guess what? They’re about to become very expensive. Companies will soon realize that AI can’t replace experienced engineers. But by then, there will be fewer of them. Many will have started their own businesses, some will be deeply entrenched in niche fields, and others will simply be too busy (or too rich) to care about your failing software department. > Want to hire them back? Hope you have deep pockets and a good amount of luck. The few serious programmers left will charge rates that make executives cry. And even if you do manage to hire them, they won’t stick around to play corporate politics or deal with useless middle managers. They’ll fix your broken systems, invoice you an eye-watering amount, and walk away.
- rybosworld 2y ago
  This entire article reads like hopium. And it seems predicated on the false belief that companies are going to try to replace their entire workforce with AI overnight: > "Imagine a company that fires its software engineers, replaces them with AI-generated code, and then sits back" It should go without saying this is not even possible at the moment. Will it be possible one day? Yes, probably. And when that day comes, the fantasies this author has dreamed up will be irrelevant. I've said it before and I'll say it again: It shocks me that a forum filled with tech professionals, is so blindly biased against AI that they refuse to acknowledge what changes are coming. All of these conversations boil down to: "The LLM's of today couldn't replace me." That's probably true for most folks. What's also true is that ChatGPT was released less than 3 years ago. And we've seen it go from a novelty with no real use, to something that can write actually decent research papers and gets better at coding by the month. "B-b-but there's no guarantee it will continue to improve!" is one of the silliest trains of thought a computer scientist could hold.
  - dmix 2y ago
    Even if we don't write code software engineers (or technically minded people) will be able to coordinate hundreds of AI bots better than the average person and manage the systems. If there's a day where programming is not as valuable I'm pretty confident I can find some way to be useful in the future economy. And if it's real AGI, not airplanes flying themselves with a pilot stuff, then we probably will have to re-think employment anyway
    - rybosworld 2y ago
      > Even if we don't write code software engineers (or technically minded people) will be able to coordinate hundreds of AI bots better than the average person and manage the systems. There might be a period of time where product management and qa are still done by people, but I think that period will be transitory and short. I think software engineers in general are grossly underestimating the probability they will be replaced. On a 20-30 year timeline, that probability might be close to 100%. Probably, it will also be gradual, and those who are displaced (starting with least experienced, to most), will not be able to find similar employment. We are all more or less opting into this without a fight.
      - dmix 2y ago
        > We are all more or less opting into this without a fight. I don’t fear my dev job becoming less valuable as large chunks become automated. Like I said if it happens I will figure out a way to be useful to society in other ways, even if it’s inventing things for AI to do or controlling AI to do the job of a bunch of devs. I will adapt like everyone has in history and make myself valuable in new ways. “Nothing is static. Everything is evolving. Everything is falling apart.”
        rybosworld 2y ago
        > I will adapt like everyone has in history and make myself valuable in new ways. I think it's naïve to compare automation of the human mind, to that of the human body. This isn't John Henry vs the Steam Drill. We're approaching something that will be able to (and already can in some respects) do every single task a human brain can, but faster and cheaper. I think it's extremely unlikely that software engineers will shift to "AI managers" for any meaningful amount of time. The goal here is to replace the human worker. There might be a period of time where we have AI managers for AI developers but that seems like an unnecessary human abstraction. If an AI is capable for management, and development, it can just be one system, rather than two.
cootsnuck 2y ago
What did/do you call your services you offer? I sincerely love debugging (fixing tech of any kind digital or analog). Never thought I could offer services just fixing instead of building from scratch...

ethagnawl 2y ago

If you missed this recent post, I think you'll appreciate it: https://defragzone.substack.com/p/techs-dumbest-mistake-why-firing https://defragzone.substack.com/p/techs-dumbest-mistake-why-... > Now, let’s talk about the real winners in all this: the programmers who saw the chaos coming and refused to play along. The ones who didn’t take FAANG jobs but instead went deep into systems programming, AI interpretability, or high-performance computing. These are the people who actually understand technology at a level no AI can replicate. > And guess what? They’re about to become very expensive. Companies will soon realize that AI can’t replace experienced engineers. But by then, there will be fewer of them. Many will have started their own businesses, some will be deeply entrenched in niche fields, and others will simply be too busy (or too rich) to care about your failing software department. > Want to hire them back? Hope you have deep pockets and a good amount of luck. The few serious programmers left will charge rates that make executives cry. And even if you do manage to hire them, they won’t stick around to play corporate politics or deal with useless middle managers. They’ll fix your broken systems, invoice you an eye-watering amount, and walk away.

rybosworld 2y ago
This entire article reads like hopium. And it seems predicated on the false belief that companies are going to try to replace their entire workforce with AI overnight: > "Imagine a company that fires its software engineers, replaces them with AI-generated code, and then sits back" It should go without saying this is not even possible at the moment. Will it be possible one day? Yes, probably. And when that day comes, the fantasies this author has dreamed up will be irrelevant. I've said it before and I'll say it again: It shocks me that a forum filled with tech professionals, is so blindly biased against AI that they refuse to acknowledge what changes are coming. All of these conversations boil down to: "The LLM's of today couldn't replace me." That's probably true for most folks. What's also true is that ChatGPT was released less than 3 years ago. And we've seen it go from a novelty with no real use, to something that can write actually decent research papers and gets better at coding by the month. "B-b-but there's no guarantee it will continue to improve!" is one of the silliest trains of thought a computer scientist could hold.
- dmix 2y ago
  Even if we don't write code software engineers (or technically minded people) will be able to coordinate hundreds of AI bots better than the average person and manage the systems. If there's a day where programming is not as valuable I'm pretty confident I can find some way to be useful in the future economy. And if it's real AGI, not airplanes flying themselves with a pilot stuff, then we probably will have to re-think employment anyway
  - rybosworld 2y ago
    > Even if we don't write code software engineers (or technically minded people) will be able to coordinate hundreds of AI bots better than the average person and manage the systems. There might be a period of time where product management and qa are still done by people, but I think that period will be transitory and short. I think software engineers in general are grossly underestimating the probability they will be replaced. On a 20-30 year timeline, that probability might be close to 100%. Probably, it will also be gradual, and those who are displaced (starting with least experienced, to most), will not be able to find similar employment. We are all more or less opting into this without a fight.
    - dmix 2y ago
      > We are all more or less opting into this without a fight. I don’t fear my dev job becoming less valuable as large chunks become automated. Like I said if it happens I will figure out a way to be useful to society in other ways, even if it’s inventing things for AI to do or controlling AI to do the job of a bunch of devs. I will adapt like everyone has in history and make myself valuable in new ways. “Nothing is static. Everything is evolving. Everything is falling apart.”
      - rybosworld 2y ago
        > I will adapt like everyone has in history and make myself valuable in new ways. I think it's naïve to compare automation of the human mind, to that of the human body. This isn't John Henry vs the Steam Drill. We're approaching something that will be able to (and already can in some respects) do every single task a human brain can, but faster and cheaper. I think it's extremely unlikely that software engineers will shift to "AI managers" for any meaningful amount of time. The goal here is to replace the human worker. There might be a period of time where we have AI managers for AI developers but that seems like an unnecessary human abstraction. If an AI is capable for management, and development, it can just be one system, rather than two.

cootsnuck 2y ago

What did/do you call your services you offer? I sincerely love debugging (fixing tech of any kind digital or analog). Never thought I could offer services just fixing instead of building from scratch...