From the article:
> I contest the idea that LLMs are replacing human devs...
AI is not able to replace good devs. I am assuming that nobody sane is claiming such a thing today. But, it can probably replace bad and mediocre devs. Even today.
In my org we had 3 devs who went through a 6-month code boot camp and got hired a few years ago when it was very difficult to find good devs. They struggled. I would give them easy tasks and then clean up their PRs during review. And then AI tools got much better and it started outperforming these guys. We had to let two go. And third one quit on his own.
We still hire devs. But have become very reluctant to hire junior devs. And will never hire someone from a code boot camp. And we are not the only ones. I think most boot camps have gone out of business for this reason.
Will AI tools eventually get good enough to start replacing good devs? I don't know. But the data so far shows that these tools keep getting better over time. Anybody who argues otherwise has their heads firmly stuck in sand.
In the early US history approximately 90% of the population was involved in farming. Over the years things changed. Now about 2% has anything to do with farming. Fewer people are farming now. But we have a lot more food and a larger variety available. Technology made that possible.
It is totally possible that something like that could happen to the software development industry as well. How fast it happens totally depends on how fast do the tools improve.
A computer science degree in most US colleges takes about 4 years of work. Boot camps try to cram that into 6 months. All the while many students have other full-time jobs. This is simply not enough training for the students to start solving complex real world problem. Even 4 years is not enough.
Many companies were willing to hire fresh college grads in the hopes that they could solve relatively easy problems for a few years, gain experience and become successful senior devs at some point.
However, with the advent of AI dev tools, we are seeing very clear signs that junior dev hiring rates have fallen off a cliff. Our project manager, who has no dev experience, frequently assigns easy tasks/github issues to Github Copilot. Copilot generates a PR in a few minutes that other devs can review before merging. These PRs are far superior to what an average graduate of a code boot camp could ever create. Any need we had for a junior dev has completely disappeared.
That's the question that has been stuck in my head as I read all these stories about junior dev jobs disappearing. I'm firmly mid-level, having started my career just before LLM coding took off. Sometimes it feels like I got on the last chopper out of Saigon.
My experience with them is that the are taught to cover as much syntax and libraries as possible, without spending time learning how solve problems and develop their own algorithms. They (in general) expect to follow predefined recipes.
AI is not able to replace good devs. I am assuming that nobody sane is claiming such a thing today. But, it can probably replace bad and mediocre devs. Even today.
In my org we had 3 devs who went through a 6-month code boot camp and got hired a few years ago when it was very difficult to find good devs. They struggled. I would give them easy tasks and then clean up their PRs during review. And then AI tools got much better and it started outperforming these guys. We had to let two go. And third one quit on his own.
We still hire devs. But have become very reluctant to hire junior devs. And will never hire someone from a code boot camp. And we are not the only ones. I think most boot camps have gone out of business for this reason.
Will AI tools eventually get good enough to start replacing good devs? I don't know. But the data so far shows that these tools keep getting better over time. Anybody who argues otherwise has their heads firmly stuck in sand.
In the early US history approximately 90% of the population was involved in farming. Over the years things changed. Now about 2% has anything to do with farming. Fewer people are farming now. But we have a lot more food and a larger variety available. Technology made that possible.
It is totally possible that something like that could happen to the software development industry as well. How fast it happens totally depends on how fast do the tools improve.