alt Hacker NewsI've had quite a few conversations and read many thoughts on the subject of job security in the software industry through the years. New technologies, various crisis and crashes, just age, incoming "hordes" of less prepared developers, or whatever.
If I had to highlight the one thing all those conversations had in common it would be precisely this:
I thought that having this knowledge would set me apart
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Knowledge depreciates, so it is clarifying to add time explicitly: I thought this knowledge would set me apart...
Forever? That seems over-optimistic for all occupations in all eras.
For the rest of my working career? This really hasn't been true in a long time either, especially in software, where technology changes on the order of years.
For the duration of my mortgage? The fondest hope, but pretty much like the above.
For the next 10 years? Here is the big change. Even for fields like medicine, where knowledge really did set you apart. The AI can adapt faster. AI is inside the human OODA loop.
does it never? seems to me that people pay me precisely for my knowledge, learned over many years. The knowledge translates into action, sure. But thats like the old parable about a plumber being paid €150 for a 5 minute consult that involves turning a single screw. "i could have turned that screw!" the customer cries, ignoring that yes, they could have. But they didn't know to.
I think perhaps the problem is instead "I thought that having this knowledge would set me apart, forever, without me having to learn anything else"
Some knowledge does set you apart - the ability to ship things, people pay for.
Not producing holy code in the academic best language.
Agreed. The ability to learn new things, and what characteristics their ability to learn has -- that's one dimension that strongly differentiates people in nearly any domain.
But there are other dimensions as well that differentiate people and determine their value to business, like the ability to be handed problems no one else can solve and stick with them through sheer stubbornness until solutions begin to emerge.
My concern is less about knowledge and more about the ability to communicate and make good decisions. I'm not sure how well it holds up against technology that can sometimes make a good showing at it, but is most importantly automated, cheap and subservient.
This is the old China fallacy.
"Oh, we'll just ship production to China, and do the design and marketing in US, this is where the real value is anyway, China will never be able to do design and marketing as well as we do".
Literally same thing:
"Oh, we'll just let LLMs code, and we'll just do Taste. LLMs will never be able to do Taste"
Knowledge often does not produce competence, especially in the applicable market. I work on the system administration side of things, and I have encountered many output-competent developers that were immeasurably stupid, but very little incompetent ones with tons of cryptic knowledge and intuitive understanding of the systems they worked on.
It seems to me that knowledge doesn't always imply competence, but the lack of knowledge often very well explains incompetence. And, since the LLM is replacing the competence part without imprinting any knowledge on the one that wields it, it generates a lot of competent imbeciles that pass interviews and appear as though they not only do things, but know things as well. And once you reach that critical mass, sheeeeesh
>>I thought that having this knowledge would set me apart
The whole leetcode movement was designed to sell this idea that knowing a solution that can be looked up in a matter of minutes on the internet some how puts you astronomically ahead of those who don't. Strangely enough go look at that site itself and thousands submit working solutions to those problems.
Knowing a solution discovered by somebody the first time, is no test of capacity or ability to get work done. It would probably matter if you discovered solution to a novel problem by yourself. How does knowing the end result of a long process by other people decide your ability to do anything at all?
During interviews I have seen companies go to absurd lengths to justify these tests. Including asking candidates to imagine they might not have internet and might need to know these solutions.
The only skill that really matters in our line of work is today most popularly known as high agency lifestyle. And delivery skills largely depend on ownership. In my decades of experience with software work, not knowing a thing isn't even a correlating factor in getting things done.
Everyone but insane people like me want some kind of durable stability to their life
they don’t want to be forced to reinvent themselves every five years because the world is changing faster than it ever has
While I understand where people are coming from to an extent that’s just never been my lifestyle and so when I see people looking for some kind of long-term stability I just kind of baffled at what makes them think that that was ever possible.
It’s like the propaganda from the American 1950s nuclear family idealism really got locked in in a way that people believe that there was a real thing
And while it was certainly true that American baby boomers got to ride the economic pax Americana that happened from 1949 to today, that period is over
While it is still possible for you to have a career your career is most likely going to change every 5 to 10 years now and that’s just a fact of the society that we have built
we did not build society intentionally
It was built via attrition and the current leaders are the ones who are fully committed to monetary based global domination
I think in the future, those who succeed will be equivalent to wayfinders.
People who _can_ see the wood for the trees, and are able to understand multiple (sometimes conflicting) requirements and work out a way through that solves the problems that arise, for all involved parties.
An understanding of domain, the ability to communicate effectively and a mind that can think laterally, will all be vital.