3 ms·

So what enables job security now?

BarryMilo 4mo ago
Your dad owning the company?
simonw 4mo ago
Being a really good engineer - the kind of engineer you can assign a feature to and they promptly turn around a robust, maintainable, secure and well documented implementation.
- JodieBenitez 4mo ago
  hey... claudex helps me being that.
  - necovek 4mo ago
    So does your IDE, your choice of programming language, your OS even — but does it define you/make you a good software engineer?
    - JodieBenitez 4mo ago
      No, but who said that ?
      - necovek 4mo ago
        I'll be explicit: Claude is just another tool in your SW engineer's belt. If you believe Claude makes you a good engineer and you previously weren't, I am saying that's not true and you still are not a good engineer even with the latest-and-greatest Claude model. The difference is between "helps" (in your comment) or "you are". Sure, it helps a good engineer do more, do better, etc — but the thread was on being a good engineer.
        JodieBenitez 4mo ago
        I was a "good" (whatever that means !) SW engineer long before Claudex. At least good enough that both users and bosses had nothing but praises. And I always took my job and the needs of the users seriously. It's "just another tool", sure. But one that is so powerful that some things that used to take a day now take minutes, or ones that used to take a week now take a day. And I get even more praises now, along with more time to focus on understanding the needs and controlling quality. For me it's not really about stuffing as much features as possible, but providing better software. I'm glad this happened after 25 years in my career. I believe I'm in a privileged position where I can benefit from LLMs and still have the knowledge to effectively correct the machine or go back to "manual mode" if anything goes wrong.
        necovek 4mo ago
        Sounds like we are in agreement: LLMs are a great help to an already good engineer. But also to the original Simon's point that using LLM does not a good engineer make — how we make one is still on us with 10+ years (I've got "only" 20) of experience to figure out now that LLMs are here! Implicit definition of a good engineer is the one who chooses the right balance between effort, complexity, performance to build a working software system for a business need that can be evolved according to (unforeseen!) future business needs at reasonable cost.
whattheheckheck 4mo ago
Let them attempt to use ai to build business critical systems and when they waste tens amd hundreds of millions they can rehire master builders who know what they're doing
- intrasight 4mo ago
  They will attempt and then soon enough they will be succeeding, and the master builders will have all retired, and that's the point that humans become dependent upon AI's. I aim to live a couple more decades and I sadly expect to see it play out this way.
  - whattheheckheck 4mo ago
    Master builders ought to write blogs, books and speak at conferences and in podcasts for clout and subscriber money so the training data can get scooped up in the next loop. And pick the best of the best for master/apprentice training while you still can
lenerdenator 4mo ago
If you can move humans around like pawns, then by definition, they have no job security.

Your dad owning the company?

Being a really good engineer - the kind of engineer you can assign a feature to and they promptly turn around a robust, maintainable, secure and well documented implementation.

JodieBenitez 4mo ago
hey... claudex helps me being that.
- necovek 4mo ago
  So does your IDE, your choice of programming language, your OS even — but does it define you/make you a good software engineer?
  - JodieBenitez 4mo ago
    No, but who said that ?
    - necovek 4mo ago
      I'll be explicit: Claude is just another tool in your SW engineer's belt. If you believe Claude makes you a good engineer and you previously weren't, I am saying that's not true and you still are not a good engineer even with the latest-and-greatest Claude model. The difference is between "helps" (in your comment) or "you are". Sure, it helps a good engineer do more, do better, etc — but the thread was on being a good engineer.
      - JodieBenitez 4mo ago
        I was a "good" (whatever that means !) SW engineer long before Claudex. At least good enough that both users and bosses had nothing but praises. And I always took my job and the needs of the users seriously. It's "just another tool", sure. But one that is so powerful that some things that used to take a day now take minutes, or ones that used to take a week now take a day. And I get even more praises now, along with more time to focus on understanding the needs and controlling quality. For me it's not really about stuffing as much features as possible, but providing better software. I'm glad this happened after 25 years in my career. I believe I'm in a privileged position where I can benefit from LLMs and still have the knowledge to effectively correct the machine or go back to "manual mode" if anything goes wrong.
        necovek 4mo ago
        Sounds like we are in agreement: LLMs are a great help to an already good engineer. But also to the original Simon's point that using LLM does not a good engineer make — how we make one is still on us with 10+ years (I've got "only" 20) of experience to figure out now that LLMs are here! Implicit definition of a good engineer is the one who chooses the right balance between effort, complexity, performance to build a working software system for a business need that can be evolved according to (unforeseen!) future business needs at reasonable cost.

whattheheckheck 4mo ago

Let them attempt to use ai to build business critical systems and when they waste tens amd hundreds of millions they can rehire master builders who know what they're doing

intrasight 4mo ago
They will attempt and then soon enough they will be succeeding, and the master builders will have all retired, and that's the point that humans become dependent upon AI's. I aim to live a couple more decades and I sadly expect to see it play out this way.
- whattheheckheck 4mo ago
  Master builders ought to write blogs, books and speak at conferences and in podcasts for clout and subscriber money so the training data can get scooped up in the next loop. And pick the best of the best for master/apprentice training while you still can

lenerdenator 4mo ago

If you can move humans around like pawns, then by definition, they have no job security.