6 ms·

I won’t take credit for this insight, but as someone else pointed out, everyone oversimplifies other people’s jobs. To PMs engineers are just code monkeys that

I won’t take credit for this insight, but as someone else pointed out, everyone oversimplifies other people’s jobs. To PMs engineers are just code monkeys that they won’t need soon. To engineers, PMs are the guys that manage Jira. Designers are the fussy people that make things look pretty. The reality is all these jobs have intricacies AI absolutely sucks at but those intricacies are lost in the larger discussion. As a coder though, I’ll point out this is why the “AI solved coding” shit drives me crazy. You only believe that if you don’t know how to code or you have an agenda.

adithyassekhar 8mo ago
And for people who never liked it in the first place and just wanted a quick buck.
- ares623 8mo ago
  which doesn't make sense because the quick buck train is gonna stop. But then again, maybe there wasn't any sense in them in the first place.
- tadfisher 8mo ago
  You can't pay Claude with equity though
  - maininformer 8mo ago
    You can tell him and he will love it and I bet he has encoded the behavior of working better because of it just how some tried threatening LLMs to work harder
idontwantthis 8mo ago
Do people really think like that? I see the other people at my company as human beings solving complex problems whether they are an engineer, a manager, an exec, or HR.
- e40 8mo ago
  Absolutely. This is precisely why people are saying AI will eliminate software jobs.
  - idontwantthis 8mo ago
    Do we need more of those “If you think it’s so easy, try being me for a day!” sitcom episodes?
threethirtytwo 8mo ago
No. There are intricacies to every job but these are intricacies that are learnable. It’s like learning how to drive. It’s a skill for sure but anyone can do it after practice. I thought programming was the same thing for a long time but have grown to find out that this is not the case. There are many people who cannot learn programming in a reasonable amount of time and therefore are unable to pick up the skill. It is not universal like car driving. The thing with being a PM or a designer is that this skill is learnable. Anyone can do it. The reason why these jobs are segregated is because society is under the delusion that these are special skills that require intense training when at most he training is equivalent to learning how to drive. Some of you may be thinking I’m insane but there are tons of jobs that are like this. The presidency for example. You can be senile and insane and still be president. The country doesn’t blow up just because you’re insane. Or maybe this isn’t a good characterization. Hmm electrician or plumber is the better comparison. The skill level required to be a PM or designer is equivalent to electrician or plumber. Anyone can pick it up with training. It’s not rocket science folks.
- paulhebert 8mo ago
  Huh as someone who has a career doing both design and engineering I disagree with this take. I think both skills can be learned. I also think that people have intrinsic talents that make them better or worse at those skills. Put another way, anyone can learn to code but some people will never be great at it while others have a natural talent. Same for design. I’m curious why you think otherwise. What’s the difference in your mind?
  - chamomeal 8mo ago
    I’m kinda getting off topic here but anecdotally: I’ve tried to get so many of my friends to learn programming. I love it, and I think a lot of em would love it too. But they hit a hard wall with the patience needed to self learn. Like the moment something doesn’t happen like the tutorial said (error message saying “idk what python is, you mean python3?”), they just give up completely instead of googling it. I really feel like the venn diagram of “people who can code” and “people who can google errors they don’t understand for a couple hours” is nearly a perfect circle. LLMs can smooth out those little tediums, so maybe more people really will be able to learn programming now. But then again if you don’t have the patience to trudge through the annoying parts, will you have the patience to be confused and struggle, instead of letting Claude do the hard stuff for you? I’ll be interested to see what future self-taught devs look like!
devsda 8mo ago
Instead of engineer vs PM/manager I separate those jobs based on these categories. 1. How long they can survive in the job while being mediocre or outright bad at their job. 2. Probability of failing upwards. Engineering roles tend to filter out bad candidates more early, quickly and the probability of failing upwards is less when compared to PM and managerial roles. Also, in my experience PM and managerial roles looks like skills based jobs but they tend to select individuals with specific personality types and they are more likely to excel. Developer roles also select towards certain personality types but I think its more diverse than we care to admit.
deleted 8mo ago
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adithyassekhar 8mo ago

And for people who never liked it in the first place and just wanted a quick buck.

ares623 8mo ago
which doesn't make sense because the quick buck train is gonna stop. But then again, maybe there wasn't any sense in them in the first place.
tadfisher 8mo ago
You can't pay Claude with equity though
- maininformer 8mo ago
  You can tell him and he will love it and I bet he has encoded the behavior of working better because of it just how some tried threatening LLMs to work harder

idontwantthis 8mo ago

Do people really think like that? I see the other people at my company as human beings solving complex problems whether they are an engineer, a manager, an exec, or HR.

e40 8mo ago
Absolutely. This is precisely why people are saying AI will eliminate software jobs.
- idontwantthis 8mo ago
  Do we need more of those “If you think it’s so easy, try being me for a day!” sitcom episodes?

threethirtytwo 8mo ago

No. There are intricacies to every job but these are intricacies that are learnable. It’s like learning how to drive. It’s a skill for sure but anyone can do it after practice. I thought programming was the same thing for a long time but have grown to find out that this is not the case. There are many people who cannot learn programming in a reasonable amount of time and therefore are unable to pick up the skill. It is not universal like car driving. The thing with being a PM or a designer is that this skill is learnable. Anyone can do it. The reason why these jobs are segregated is because society is under the delusion that these are special skills that require intense training when at most he training is equivalent to learning how to drive. Some of you may be thinking I’m insane but there are tons of jobs that are like this. The presidency for example. You can be senile and insane and still be president. The country doesn’t blow up just because you’re insane. Or maybe this isn’t a good characterization. Hmm electrician or plumber is the better comparison. The skill level required to be a PM or designer is equivalent to electrician or plumber. Anyone can pick it up with training. It’s not rocket science folks.

paulhebert 8mo ago
Huh as someone who has a career doing both design and engineering I disagree with this take. I think both skills can be learned. I also think that people have intrinsic talents that make them better or worse at those skills. Put another way, anyone can learn to code but some people will never be great at it while others have a natural talent. Same for design. I’m curious why you think otherwise. What’s the difference in your mind?
- chamomeal 8mo ago
  I’m kinda getting off topic here but anecdotally: I’ve tried to get so many of my friends to learn programming. I love it, and I think a lot of em would love it too. But they hit a hard wall with the patience needed to self learn. Like the moment something doesn’t happen like the tutorial said (error message saying “idk what python is, you mean python3?”), they just give up completely instead of googling it. I really feel like the venn diagram of “people who can code” and “people who can google errors they don’t understand for a couple hours” is nearly a perfect circle. LLMs can smooth out those little tediums, so maybe more people really will be able to learn programming now. But then again if you don’t have the patience to trudge through the annoying parts, will you have the patience to be confused and struggle, instead of letting Claude do the hard stuff for you? I’ll be interested to see what future self-taught devs look like!

devsda 8mo ago

Instead of engineer vs PM/manager I separate those jobs based on these categories. 1. How long they can survive in the job while being mediocre or outright bad at their job. 2. Probability of failing upwards. Engineering roles tend to filter out bad candidates more early, quickly and the probability of failing upwards is less when compared to PM and managerial roles. Also, in my experience PM and managerial roles looks like skills based jobs but they tend to select individuals with specific personality types and they are more likely to excel. Developer roles also select towards certain personality types but I think its more diverse than we care to admit.

deleted 8mo ago

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