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What's my advice, as An Old SWE, given <all this>? As a Jr SWE, I think it is in fact, still useful to force yourself to learn good algorithms and data structures and how databases work (like really) and how to code an inverted index by hand and all Stuff Claude can just Do For You. even in: foOM!

why? well first, the caveat: if you don't want to be a SWE, you don't need this at all, just learn to get good answers out of the models. and: we may not need anywhere near as many high-powered (and high paid) SWEs, soon. I have a prediction that we'll have a highly bimodal SWE distribution:

I keep seeing this idea that LLMs are going to have some effect or other on which skills/backgrounds are relatively valued in the labour market. But I think we're pretty clearly living through the death of labour in general. The centaur era won't last for much longer.

We're all guessing, when it comes to the future, yes. I don't know what "death of labour" would entail, however. What gets built, by whom, in this world? are Product Managers "labour", or are they "Management" as their name implies?

Is it possible for a human brain to really know the insides of algorithms, models, and hardware better than a good agent? Maybe there's an element to "knowing where the bodies are buried" that I'm missing?

all of them? no. and less so as time goes on. but the human mind can, so far, have enough algorithmic / data / network / architecture design / ML skills to know when the coding agents are doing a "well known, but def. bad for this case" thing. that's most of the "burial plots" bit: experience

I'm not a coder so I'm definitely not acting like I know better or am arguing with you, I'm genuinely trying to understand. I'm not doubting that a human can do that. I'm just wondering if a human can do that better than an agent can or wills such that it's worth seven figures annually.

I expect there'll also be a layer needed in between those two, to act as guides/interpreters/viziers for the 7fig club who won't want to have to talk directly to the slops.

why do I predict this: the "Expertise" paper I keep referring back to, by Autor and Thompson, which finds that Jevons Paradox plays out in multiple directions simultaneously in the same profession, as the automation changes what tasks it commoditizes. so *do* you want to be a SWE?

There of course might be more than 2 modes. We could see the rising of a new profession of slopsultancies who help anyone from mom&pop shops up through John Deere and the govt of East Timor get bespoke software shit down with AI, and they'll pay for it. so... be ready to work with *people*, too.

Is there where the increase in FDEs ties in? “Now that you understand our stack, go to talk to customers about how they can incorporate our stack, help them do it, then bring back any findings to homebase”

But it might not be terribly fun to work in software anymore, at many (most?) companies. It's an *absolute blast* (IMO) to build software *for fun* now, but being a journeyman SWE, being squeezed through a slop-cannon shaped tube? Doesn't sound super fun, to tell the truth.