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How bad is the software engineering job today? (lemmy.world)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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I have been reading a lot that 90% of their code is AI generated, companies are pushing developers to use AI as it makes them fast. But I am a little cautious of believing them. Is it true? Also sorry I didn't find a css career subreddit so I am asking here.

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[–] 34 points 5 months ago (9 children)

Run. Run while you still can.

I recently lost my job because I didn’t want to use AI to write 50-100% of my code as my boss requested.

I technically can’t say I lost my job because of AI as they told me they were laying me off due to restructuring, but a week after I was laid off they were hiring for my exact same skillset with a different title and the caveat that the applicant must use AI to write code. So you do the math.

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  • [–] [S] 14 points 5 months ago (8 children)

    Dude😭. Where can I even run now? I would be graduating next month

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago*

    i wonder about fresh graduates and how they're going to survive this job market.

    i graduated with an electrical engineering related degree, but it was immediately after the dot com bubble burst so there were no jobs in my field to be had, but i got lucky and found one doing IT and (at the time) there was still strong a enough demand for software development that my IT experience was deemed "good enough" to allow me to enter the field.

    22 years later, i got burned out by the culture that software engineers tend to gravitate towards and pivoted back to IT at a non-profit that serves lower & middle income students. i've had to work with some of them as part of work-study sort of thing and every single one of them is sharp af -- much more than i was at that age and especially so when it comes to ai -- but i see every single one of them (justifiably) freak out about their prospects and i feel for them based on my own experiences.

    the colleagues at my new firm have been doing this for 30+ years and have never faced layoffs, downsizing, restructuring, etc. and their callous attitude towards fresh grads wrestling this specter is weighing on me just as much as the dominant i've-got-mine-fuck-you type of culture that software engineers tend to adopt when in the field.

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago* (2 children)

    A friend of mine graduated some years ago from a good uni. He transitioned quickly from actually writing code to just reviewing AI written code. He hates it, and its got to the point he has automated the reviewing process as well. He's floated the idea of getting into nursing from how much he hates it.

    He used to be very passionate about it.

    I relate w you though. I graduated from Graphic Design the week midjourney took off. It's been... Rough.

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  • [–] [S] 14 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Dude, I am guilty of writing entire projects with AI. I am not exaggerating, it literally feels like brain rot. Yeah people say now devs have time for high level design but bro, you need experience to know about high level design. Like, I can think of hundred of different ways to design something, but all hundred would be shit compared to what a knowledgeable person would build. Also it won't be the job most people like

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    It's not going to be immediate, but skilled devs are going to be in demand in a few years when the seniors with experience retire and the juniors that never learned to properly code can't senior.

    There are jobs out there, and you'll probably at the very least have AI tools to use with varying levels of requirements. I have tools but don't have any expectations to use them. I transitioned from sysadmin to RPA developer to full stack over the past few years with no prior professional dev experience, just one year at Uni and some self learning. So there are spots out there for actual dev graduates.

    Here's the kicker... It's more about who you know than what you know. Your best bet to get a job is to network and get some sort of referral. Your reference gets your resume read, your resume gets you in the door, and you degree + reference get you a job.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Transition from code to data.

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I don't wanna be choosy, but working to make models smarter does feel like digging my own grave

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago

    Not at all what I mean. Working with data has nothing to do with models. Models consume data, but so does everything else.

    Right now we are drowning in data. With the AI hype, companies now want to retain their data longer, but optimizing the processing and retreival of said data is an essential art that AI is currently very bad at. Data centers are adding processing power to tgeir infrastructure, but IO is still a massive bottle neck.

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