The End Of Jr Engineers

[@ThePrimeTimeagen]

Seriously though. Even if you quit watching. Watch the end and my response. I do get quite frustrated and maybe lose my cool

[@Hajdew]

no edit: ok i watched id it was ok

[@abhinavrobinson2310]

All this AI thrifting will have some serious consequences on the skills of these developers long term. My take: keep learning and coding in the way that suits you best. And once all of these AI assisted developers have fully depreciated their skills, you will be the most hireable person in the room, and then feel free to ask the $ with your leverage.

[@zoeherriot]

@@abhinavrobinson2310yup :)

[@thr0ne1997]

i'm new, why do you always select the entire sentence except the first and last letter when highlighting in articles

[@world-9644]

The chicken does not make the egg obsolete… all I gatta say

[@EvilTim1911]

My entire life comes down to that meme "I should have been gaining experience and buying a home back in 1999 instead of being a toddler"

[@dungeonmir]

better telling your grandfather to buy all the silver in 1979😁

[@custos3249]

Makes it all the more surreal when you consider there are any, let alone how many there are, people who'd genuinely agree. Evidently, the only explanation if you're not doing well is you making poor choices, like not being born already rich.

[@canobenitez]

Please step out of the car sir.

[@LutherDePapier]

Powerful. That's powerful.

[@mrsmexypants7508]

@@custos3249

[@Kane0123]

Yep, these youngsters picked a terrible time to be born. Rookie error, better luck next time.

[@sacredgeometry]

Its not that at all. When looking to start a career you need to look at the job market and the skills deficit, the career progression and security and go from there. If you were dumb enough to just fall for the obvious bullshit that clearly incompetent tech influencers have told you about programming and a job they clearly failed at then you probably deserve all the hardship you get.

[@bilge677]

bad spawn RNG

[@tablettablete186]

Should have waited for the AGI paradise! 😂

[@rustymustard7798]

Classic noob mistake.

[@hungrymusicwolf]

You can't blame them for their rookie mistake. After all they were forced to decide at the ripe young age of -9 months. Truly the most new of noobs.

[@fdg-rt2rk]

Companies now: "need a senior developer who can work with a peanut salary of jr. developer"

[@rumplstiltztinkerstein]

Yes. Job opportunities named "Junior Developer" asking for 3 years of experience in the area.

[@lazyman2451]

😂 I saw one saying I need jr with 8 years of experience. I might as well lie on my resume

[@dranon0o]

You need to realize that the future will be composed of a lot of small companies Software engineers has to become more entrepreneurial

[@gamereactz]

No ​@@dranon0o

[@AndreiTheDev]

Or unpaid internships

[@russellbusch]

Lawyer here: large law firm, was a software engineer for years before law school, I'm on my 100+ attorney law firm's technology scouting committee. We've reviewed and used many AI products targeted at law. It's not even CLOSE to replacing junior associates. Hell, it isn't even close to replacing summer interns. Like with coding, it can make some tasks more productive. But much more than in coding it can be worse than a waste of time (lead you astray, etc.)

[@ThePrimeTimeagen]

I've never been More glad to hear this. I was just really struggling with believing this

[@BizzaroBrainBoi]

So theres hope for us junior entry level guys?

[@maryobiagba5066]

Yes ​@@BizzaroBrainBoi I'm currently a junior Dev at my work place. And I tell you, there's a lot of hope for juniors.

[@hikemalliday6007]

@@BizzaroBrainBoi I would keep going man. I just finished an internship, they said theres a good chance i'll get hired, but not 100%. Will let me know in 1 - 2 weeks while they sort the books. But it should also be noted that im lucky I think, found the internship through people I know. So networking is always powerful

[@412781965qq]

my class action man you are using your real name on the internet. i respect it lol.

[@ReallyGoodBadBoy]

I felt like globalization and localized pay is a much bigger challenge to overcome than LLM. I’ve seen job listings with ZERO open positions in the U.S. but then I switch my VPN location to India and magically 50+ listings appear for engineering in any path you want to go down. I converted the average salary to dollars and realized they are hiring full time engineers for $500 a month. That makes me more depressed than LLM.

[@shailendrapandit440]

and that buys you a very good lifestyle if you arent raising a family or dont wanna make big investments in things. truely sad.

[@krityaan]

​@@shailendrapandit4405.1 LPA is barely good. That's TCS level, and even TCS is struggling to fill vacancies with the pittances they offer. That being said, yeah, 18k USD per year in India is enough to be top 2%

[@mrmaymanalt]

As an Indian myself, $500 a month is not that bad here. It's like average entry level salary.

[@deedoodeedoo6382]

At my work we have an external team in India, I feel like I could reasonably replace half or more of their team on my own and do it better, also PRDD - pull request driven development :D Where they throw shit out in a PR, ask you to review and make you do their work for them through comments. India being cheaper doesn't really correlate with quality.

[@krityaan]

@@deedoodeedoo6382 Congrats?Tell your management you can do it? Lol. Your management wants to pay the lowest band in India for outsourced work, and then you expect talent, as if offering 30k USD per year in the USA wouldn't get you any different.

[@johnathanrhoades7751]

Without junior developers you cannot have senior developers. Same with every other industry. You get rid of juniors altogether and you will have killed an industry in 30 years. So…not really sure how they would handle that.

[@lgiorgos1]

more like in 15 years. Most developers quit coding at 15 or 20 years of experience for managerial or consulting roles

[@itermercator114]

Same happened in 2008 with mech engineers, companies gutted the mid-levels because juniors for grunt work and seniors for design, caused an issue like 8 years later because all the seniors retired, cost them way more in the long run because they had to beg these guys out of retirement

[@asdfqwerty14587]

Companies don't really deal with those kinds of problems, because they aren't some kind of hive mind with other companies that collaborates on these kinds of issues. As far as an individual company is concerned, what effect their actions have on the overall industry is negligible, so it doesn't factor into their decision making at all. It's kind of like a variant on the prisoner's dilemma.

[@senatrius1968]

Current CEOs don't care about stuff like what is going to happen as a result of their actions in a decade or two. Right now they'll fire developers en masse, not hire juniors, use everything AI to raise profits for shareholders as much as possible and by the time the problem of there not being enough juniors to take over in the work force becomes an actual problem they'll be long retired somewhere, leaving others to figure out what to do.

[@joshuatealeaves]

@@asdfqwerty14587 Brilliantly said. Kudos 👏🏻

[@world-9644]

Why are people pretending sr developers just spawn into existence each quarter? Juniors become seniors after some time and experience, without them this whole industry just collapses. Your not replacing jrs until you can replace everyone

[@MostafaMaher98]

because it is a seniors and interns market rn, seniors and managers are going on a silent purge for any junior that doesn't strike their whims or superficial impressions. I have seen devs getting laid off just because they don't hang out outside work with the team lead, therefore giving these small devs bad reviews to management, even tho they achieve the required tasks and on time many industries besides tech are going through same silent purge phase, because it is the best time rn to be a narcissistic asshole who decides do deserves to live or not

[@senatrius1968]

Everyone knows it, people responsible for hiring and firing don't care. For now firing developers en masse, not hiring juniors and using AI to reduce costs makes more profit for the shareholders, and that's all that matters for now. And as we all know, long term thinking is not the strong suit of most CEOs.

[@tukib_]

corporate NIMBY, maybe

[@TheSulross]

Henry Ford sought to sell his product to his own workforce - these days that concept has been completely jettisoned and the trend is always to eliminate human beings from the equation. Problem is, AI just regurgitates what humans created. And when the AI downsize gets severe, another Great Depression sets in and there are no viable markets to sell products to, so AI becomes a spiral into civilization unraveling.

[@hungrymusicwolf]

Well, until you can replace everyone in ca. 10 years. Then you don't need the juniors to become seniors anymore.

[@rumplstiltztinkerstein]

This reminds me of those crypto articles talking about how crypto will replace every single type of banking transaction in the next couple of years.

[@otak_]

It's because it's exactly the same thing. A stupid fad about an unreliable, extremely flawed tool that should be treated as it is: a tool. But no, some people bank their whole careers on that thing. Whatever, still not using that stuff, will not use that stuff, maybe ever?

[@alulim6964]

@@otak_ Except these AIs are actually useful, and seem to be improving pretty quickly too. Can't really call something a 'fad' if it is able to do 99% of a high schooler's homework. How do you imagine this 'fad' fading away (like NFTs did, for example)? Do you see school children and college students in the future NOT use these LLMs to help them with their homework? Do you see people who are learning something new NOT use an LLM to give them a quick answer for something? Idk, feels like cope to me.

[@headlights-go-up]

@@alulim6964 It's because a high schooler's homework is work that has been done countless times already and the AI tools just do the Googling for you.

[@enumaelish9193]

​@alulim6964 AI is just copying somebody's homework and changing it around a bit on steroids. There will still be students who are actually interested in learning properly. Using students half assing their work as your use case is funny because students will ALWAYS find a way to do less work. If it isn't copying from their classmates it'll be plagiarism or Wikipedia. A technology that erodes the ability of students to even think about half assing in their learning is a disaster waiting to happen.

[@saagar2002]

@@alulim6964 may be school work not college work ,i tried asking the vector addition and multiplication with pictures it cannot do that,chat gpt khan academy module.

[@DogeOfWar]

I actually teared up a little when you mentioned about never stealing hope from anyone. Well said.

[@piotrd.4850]

There's terrific Polish song, monologue of dude who bargains with thieves who come in to steal his hope, and offers them everything else to be laughed at. Krzysztof Daukszewicz - Przyszli Dziś Złodzieje.

[@sorrybabyx]

same

[@cardiderek]

I'm a senior engineer with over a decade of experience. The death of a junior engineer is the death of fresh minds and innovative solutions.

[@cardiderek]

@@rama-rao-y8u hard to teach an old dog new tricks.

[@roguemc-j3p]

@@rama-rao-y8u also just think logically, when the senior engineers dead, who's gonna replace them in the future if they dont give a chance to the junior engineers?

[@MynamedidntFitDonkey]

sure

[@Guccicooooooochie]

I really wish that large companies and firms shared this vision. It is appalling how we shoot ourselves in the foot for fast money. One day, we might have a large problem when junior dev's forget their education after 4+ years at a convenience store.

[@bgill7475]

@@roguemc-j3p I guess they’re hoping at that point there’ll be AI models to handle that.

[@shadamethyst1258]

This article really just reads as "Oh sorry kid, you can't find a job? Well that's because senior devs like me convinced enough people that we could replace you with AI. But that's just a skill issue on your end, so in the meantime you should try to get better. Also, I happen to sell a book on how to replace you better, go buy it." Like, I don't understand those people who are shoulder-deep in the LLM hype. I don't see how their AI god is going to replacing any junior developer anytime soon: you need to babysit it, check each and every line of its output, distrust it, reword your question 4 to 5 times and chop each problem up into tiny bite-sized pieces. I guess you can ask another AI to help you with that, but now you need to babysit two AIs. Meanwhile, a junior developer will just take longer to complete a task and might ask you for guidance if they realize they're stuck. And if you're worried about letting a junior developer write the architecture of your app, then you should also equally worry about letting an AI do that.

[@dungeonmir]

Beautifully said👏

[@senatuspopulusqueromanum]

i love you

[@perc-ai]

Stop pretending like the work you do is difficult. It’s not.

[@shadamethyst1258]

@@perc-ai Oh, of course, why didn't I think of asking ChatGPT to do my master's thesis for me?

[@realjinxy5220]

I worked for 3 large companies now (about to move away from the 3rd one) that have shifted heavily into AI, only for them to not even get much customer interest. The B2B one that I'm currently at halted development on almost all software they provide in favour of integrating AI into everything, and a large majority of their customers have left or threatened to leave because competitors have added new features, better pricing, better support, and they don't really care for the AI bs they added

[@cjbtantay]

Respect for prime for being an advocate of hope. These opportunists who'd rather add into the perception of doom just to sell you something do not deserve any of our attention. There are still hope out there for junior engineers.

[@Tawleyn]

Even with GPT-4o, "strawrerry" is still a thing, and even giving it detailed instructions, it still can't figure it out. LLMs are a fantastic tool, but articles like this only add to the overselling and overhyping of a product that will be producing absolute nightmares for the next few years.

[@SPYTHandle]

Totally agree!

[@Raya.T]

@@Tawleyn if you are a engineer and work at an enterprise company you'd be insane to be using ChatGPT/GPT4 over Co-pilot. considering Microsoft offers enterprise packages of co-pilot that keeps all information containerized for your company and almost every large company has Microsoft services integrated already. it also gives you references to everything it writes out so the chance of hallucination being a problem is severely reduced this is incredibly helpful with archaic legacy software/packages which have incredibly dated documentation. every single one of our clients has been asking how we are going to implement AI solutions and we have an entire R&D dedicated to this as have most large companies right now.

[@Rexhunterj]

Not in Australia. Programming is the only thing I'm good at, everything else I do is less than mediocre. I haven't been able to get a job here for 10 years and that only gets worse with time. We outsource ALL of the work to indians, china and the USA. Might be good for all the coders in the USA hoping to not live in poverty forever, but for those of us outside the promised land we're boned.

[@keremardicli4013]

Today if you do not resource juniors, tomorrow you won't have seniors

[@ghhdgjjfjjggj]

That's too logical. Corporations can't compute that.

[@StingSting844]

I have begun to see my work in terms of workflows to check what all parts can be done by AI. I'm seeing a lot of the time consuming, boring parts to be automatable 😮

[@kaijuultimax9407]

@@StingSting844 How do you figure when quite literally everyone who has tried to use AI to develop software has reported that it was a disaster that usually ends up having to be dumpstered and a human ends up rewriting the whole thing anyways? Let's face it, juniors are essential and pretending like they're not is just going to lead to more burden on mid-to-senior engineers which will lead to more burnout which just feeds into the current trend of senior software engineers leaving the industry to go and be veggie farmers which will ultimately collapse the industry.

[@МихаилТихомиров-м8ч]

It's more true to say it like this: "Today if you do not resource juniors, tomorrow your competitors won't have seniors"

[@darkwoodmovies]

Exactly! In a few years, there will be a huge vacuum and there will be another boom/bubble. This whole system is rotten at the top, CEOs only plan from one equity grant contract to the other.

[@ytubeanon]

Steve Yegge, the author of the article, has a close association with Cody AI as the Head of Engineering at Sourcegraph, the company that developed Cody. It's a long, persuasively-styled ad.

[@theTweak0284]

Was waiting to see when this person was either 1) Running some AI startup 2) Heavily invested in some AI that they are financially incentivized to push at every change they get

[@GlidarGlidar]

Watching "the end of jr Engineers" and in my recommended is a video called "Senior Engineers are a thing of the past". Are there any engineers still left?

[@AzanexPL]

It's all interns man D:

[@piotrd.4850]

Mids doing senior job for intern pay

[@ahumandoing6813]

@@piotrd.4850 i feel personally attacked

[@joonjonjew]

The seniors are quite literally competing with the juniors. This is the first time in history i’ve seen the job market this bad. It’s like birds fighting for bread crumbs SERIOUSLY. Like the yearly income dipped under 100k this year, now everyones getting fired too. Interest rates dropped too, last week, due to unemployment going up 1.0%. 40,000 Americans lost their job in whatever industry.

[@SpookySkeleton738]

The problem with replacing juniors with LLMs is that you won't be training up any new juniors, and all your seniors will retire and/or die, and you'll be left with a competency crisis that will make the current one we're going through look like a joke.

[@kotokotfgcscrub]

Thats the problem of future management.

[@TheSulross]

They only care about the current and possibly the next quarter - no such thing as long term perspective in corporate America

[@taragnor]

The other thing too is that if your LLM can't do a task, it can never do it. With an actual person they can learn if they don't know how to do something.

[@Th3T1redPanda]

@@kotokotfgcscrub that was a problem of the past management too

[@xCheddarB0b42x]

Look at it this way: the dearth of strategic vision implies roles for us and others.

[@xephael3485]

AI hype is insane... Its not even close to what people are making it out to be

[@sacredgeometry]

I mean its not far off and its getting better at an alarming rate. When we start hitting the limits we can make that statement but we are not even close to that yet. At the moment we are data limited. But you know a way to get way more data than just pumping text into these system? By plugging them into real time sensors. Cameras, microphones, infrastructural systems etc. Once you start doing that you getting access to patterns of information by processing data on a scale and resolution that no human has ever been even close to being able to comprehend. We are nowhere near to understanding what the limits of even LLMS are yet and thats just one very small piece of the ML puzzle. We don't have AI yet. What we have is good speech/ text to semantics regurgitation and pattern recognition and replication ... but we might one day soon if the pattern of technological acceleration is anything to trust.

[@SteadyFreedom]

@@sacredgeometry I dont buy it. Even after all the investments that have been made for multiple years by the most important tech companies in the world we are already reaching the point of diminishing returns with Artificial intelligence. The problem is that scalling up your model size and using more data can only take you so far because the way we think about AI is fundamentally flawed IMO. We are pretty much trying to emulate (badly) the way humans learn because we aren't exactly sure how that works.

[@sacredgeometry]

@@SteadyFreedom We are absolutely not reaching a point of diminishing returns. I take it you are not reading AI papers regularly. Every week we find novel applications for ML and almost the following week we find improvements in that novel application. The rate of progress is absurd and accelerating. "The problem is that scalling up your model size and using more data can only take you so far because the way we think about AI is fundamentally flawed IMO. " Again I think you are confusing LLMs with AI/ ML in general. Plenty of models are relatively tiny and already surpass human competence/ efficacy on specific tasks. AI is not AGI and the speculation that returns on LLMS are just that speculative because we are running out of data to give them. Most of the properties we saw were emergent properties that emerged after specific data thresholds ... we have no idea if there are other data thresholds that will create new emergent and unexpected properties. Sorry but I suggest going and actually reading what experts in this field are doing because it doesnt much sound like you are.

[@sacredgeometry]

@@SteadyFreedom Also ... most of that investment literally came after the fact. So what has it got to do with anything?

[@SteadyFreedom]

@@sacredgeometry Calm down dude. I never stated that I was an expert, I was trying to make the obvious point that there are practical limits to how much you can scale up a model. Infinite energy + infinite money + infinite data sounds like a winning strategy not only for AI, but for everything. That is until you come back to reality and realize that it just doesn't work.

[@ЛюбославЛюбенов]

He works in company that does AI assistant, wow what a suprise

[@avg_user-dd2yb]

What a revelation

[@ThomasWSmith-wm5xn]

“A job you’ll enjoy”… a job that will pay the bills while you work on some sick projects.

[@bargainbincatgirl6698]

13:01 As a data scientist, I think I'm able to also write and deploy a classifier and multi-class prediction model in 1 day... eventually. The big hurdle with that task is not to create the model, but evaluate if the output is really useful for the business problem. Usually the first version of the model misclassify some important class for the business or their accuracy metrics are very low so you need to return to the model and feed them with some differente features or tweak (hyper-)parameters to make the prediction better. That's why is that informal saying that "80% of data science is data preparation" because is pretty common that you need to return to that first part of the process for solving some problem down the prediction pipeline. The senior leve intern will be able to do that, even if it takes them several weeks for the first version, and I don't think the LLM will be able to do it.

[@i0ushephf]

Somehow I feel that this is when the tech industry is finally irrecoverably alienating itself from the rest of society. “You know that thing you love to do? Now you can watch a computer create an amalgamation of similar concepts into something that’s going to be preferred by corporations and the general public in the short term with no consideration for whether it’s actually a good thing “

[@gamesibeat]

They have been doing that for decades. Now they are on the path of self destruction. They might be wrong about the abilities of LLMs at the moment. However, they sure as hell want them to replace engineers and anyone else they can.

[@ElyonDominus]

​@@gamesibeat This is it, really. It doesn't matter if SWEs can be replaced with AI. It matters that we will be. Suits are generally pretty dumb and easily convinced. If they see dollar signs they'll do it. Prime is too caught up on the capabilities and not enough on basic capitalist forces.

[@alexkozliayev9902]

"preferred by corporations" Doubt that. Ahh yes tons of automatically generated code who no one understands, how sustainable

[@XDarkGreyX]

History of humanity is "plagued" by this.

[@gabrielipc]

As someone finishing uni in a few months and starting to look for entry programming jobs: "It steals from them the worst thing to steal out of all things for people that are new, which is - hope. (...) you have opportunity, you have hope". Thank you. Really.

[@zhoxnq6776]

vc é brasileiro amor surta não isso é problema dos estados unidos aqui o preço da mão de obra é baixo o suficiente pra não acontecer isso e quase n tem gente qualificada de vdd praticamente todo mundo que se forma na minha facul sai empregado já isso é problema de estadunidense que perde vaga de programação pra indiano

[@gabrielipc]

@@zhoxnq6776 Moro na Australia hahahahaha vim faz tempo, escola e faculdade aqui, terminando em alguns meses a facu. Ah, nem sei se sou brasileiro legalmente falando, só tenho passaporte australiano. Mas boa parte da minha família tá no BR e tals e eu acabo acompanhando bastante as coisas, mas não dá vontade de ir pra ficar, sabe?

[@zhoxnq6776]

@@gabrielipc ah jurava que morava aqui KKKKKKKKKKKK boa sorte amg

[@michaelsilver5862]

​@@zhoxnq6776if western economies crash the rest of the world feels it. American military secures like half the global supply chain and china is very hungry to start taking from SA snd africa.

[@mats66]

How do they imagine they will have senior staff in 5, 10, 15 years etc if they never hiring juniors that overtime will become seniors?

[@TheC0mmentSection]

Software engineer here: junior developers are not dead. They very much have a use case in that the major features, development, and releases are handled and coordinated by the senior engineer / team. However there is always repetitive work that needs to be done such as writing unit tests, fixing bugs that people don’t have time for etc. Juniors work here because they cost less money and they give more time to the senior team for developing the major features. There is always crap like this on the internet don’t listen to it and give up your dreams if it’s what you want to do. Tech is big in demand and will be for a long time.

[@footlop]

Is it just me, or does it feel like every tech-bro article is doing their DARNEDEST to cash in on the trend of "gloom and doom" about AI? And that it's really irritating to have a bunch of "pull the ladder up behind them" types talking about how you're absolutely screwed if you DARED to start a degree in CS? Like, what type of message are the seniors of this industry trying to sell to the future? "Too bad, so sad, you don't have a future, should've been born earlier because now I'm going to replace you"? What a toxic environment to find yourself in when these people 4 to 10 years ago were in your position and would've never dreamed of being treated so terribly. Like, damn. I feel so bad for kids these days coming into these industries. They're just treated like a quickly spoiling fruit with zero use.

[@Basuko_Smoker]

It IS what It is, but we gotta push nontheless, cheers

[@mookematics323]

The way I see it, if you really want to code for a living, you will do so regardless of the job market. Don't let social media influence your passion.

[@shadamethyst1258]

I think they're trying to cash in on the (arguably real) trend that finding a job in CS is becoming harder each year

[@eurixer]

High school/college ruined by COVID, career ruined by AI. Junior devs chose the wrong time to be born.

[@socringe2217]

lmao i live in a 3rd world country and it is very high demand in here. Most of these people that tells you going into software these days is a bad idea lacks a proper coconut.

[@cameronroman506]

Imagine telling someone they need to know everything the first day of the job and be an expert in everything already…..

[@angelg3642]

My reality unfortunately

[@cameronroman506]

@@angelg3642 hey it’s okay, it’s the reality for most devs unfortunately

[@setsura7]

Just fake into it first

[@cameronroman506]

@@setsura7 even though this is true it’s crap this even works in engineering. Imagine creating impossible tasks in your interview for the average human to accomplish yet someone figures out a way to “fake” it. I wouldn’t hire the fake person in a second. There are good questions to ask that you wouldn’t be able to fake anyways

[@swapnilchand338]

Never seen him actually be so angry. I hope he's right as a aspiring Software Developer

[@Spinikar]

Keep working hard mate. It's not the easiest career to get in, but getting the foot in is usually the hardest part. Also, AI isn't replying devs any time soon. From my experience the best AI models break down and struggle with any kind of real world application.

[@trentirvin2008]

Im an aspiring dev and making an app with a buddy of the same level as me. It already got him hired. That was rocket fuel for me. Keep pushing

[@isodoubIet]

It is a bad year to be starting out, but the article is wildly lying about what's possible today. That workflow being described isn't remotely workable and the only reason the author is pretending otherwise is he's selling a product.

[@PuntiS]

He is. As long as you work hard and work smart towards becoming a better professional (not a better employee), you'll have much more good than bad times.

[@henningerhenningstone691]

Honestly, nothing much has changed. The biggest danger is the over-hype skewing everyone's perception. My junior colleague still deliver crappy code, even with GPT. The only difference is, now they can't learn from their mistakes anymore because they didn't make them themselves. You can decide for yourself whether you want to continue to learn and grow, or lean back and let the AI do cheap work :)

[@YaroslavFedevych]

This is going to be lost in the comments for sure, but contrast what Yegge is saying with the advice Kurt Vonnegut gave to high school students: “What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow.” This - experience becoming and make your soul grow - is what AI grifters are robbing you of.

[@hikemalliday6007]

Ya, learning code has made me straight up smarter, period. And now I know how to learn things. Huge W either way.

[@angrybanana6223]

Growing my soul won't pay my bills

[@YaroslavFedevych]

But not growing your soul brings a question, what paying bills at all is worth

[@angrybanana6223]

@@YaroslavFedevych it's worth a roof over my head and clothes on my back. Food and drink as well. I say that's a pretty good deal

[@oompalumpus699]

​@@angrybanana6223 Growing a soul, means growing skills. Skills mean a great, better paying job. I work remote. I only work 2 or 3 hours but get paid for a whole shift. I tried to explore being a writer and an artist. I am now in tech support. I fix customer issues. Explore what you can do. AI grifters are nothing more than snake oil salesmen. In other words, git gud and work on your skill issues doomer.

[@SpacySchool]

Yo Prime, I've been watching you since I started my journey to become a software engineer. It's the first thing I've genuinely loved doing/learning. Articles/opinions like this have been the only things that have straight up made me want to quit programming on numerous occasions and more times than once, have put me into a depression where I just stopped doing it for days. Your passion at the end really lit a fire in me and honesty reignited that hope in me. Genuinely, Thank you for the content you make.

[@pressedv3017]

It's the opposite for me, with my stomach churning and my heart sank.

[@boredbytrash]

The industry will be in shopping spree for any dev that can write „Hello World“ as soon money is free to lend again… Then every CEO and CTO and startup founder will have the NEXT BIG THING idea that will make huge amounts of money… devs are then needed just like a few years ago…

[@nex9748]

i hope so, started 2 months ago and it seems pretty discouraging hearing all of these things and having like 300 candidates per unpaid intern position over here

[@ElyonDominus]

​@@nex9748I have 10+ YoE. It's abysmal for me, entry/junior must be completely out of the running.

[@Tom-jy3in]

@@nex9748 Starting out in this market is really bad. The job market for new hires in general is extremely dry due to the looming global recession (which may or may not come). Right now there isn't much money for investments i.e. junior devs so companies are extremely picky in who they hire. Because the wasted money from bad hires in this economy would hit the bottom lines of most companies too hard. Worst thing if you can't find a job is to consider moving (at least temporarily) to a different country. From my understanding the job market in the US is uniquely horrendous when it comes to junior devs.

[@49riddickful]

​@@nex9748if youre this late then without knowing somebody whos a Professional and can guide you and give feedback, The chances are almost nonexistent. If youre also not a CS student but rather self-taught then you better do it as a hobby or a side gig and start from there. If youre into .NET and/or Angular i can help you if you have a project youre actively working on

[@losing_interest_in_everything]

*For all Jr here :* *You're gonna wake up and work hard at it* *Don't let your dreams be dreams* *Make your dreams come true* *Nothing is impossible* *Yes, you can* *Just do it*

[@finnickaldrich2208]

Thanks!

[@CrimAnn1662]

Thanks😭

[@Darker7]

Hi, Shia o/ :Ü™

[@owinophil5777]

Thanks Dude

[@potato9832]

> Just do it Settle down, Shia.

[@danielvaughn4551]

For the last week I've been creating a new javascript framework. Not to toot my own horn, but it's a fairly creative approach. As an experiment, I decided to try and see if ChatGPT or Claude could have come up with the idea on their own. I gave them enough hints, and...nope. They couldn't do it. Nothing replaces creativity.

[@deadchannel8431]

May I see the GitHub/ may I hear what’s the creative approach?

[@marceldiezasch6192]

ChatGPT can't do anything that isn't basic. If you can split your project into simple enough methods, you might be able to ChatGPT something large. But at that point you already have manually planned out all your classes, methods and have to write very precise prompts... which awfully sounds like coding.

[@EvilTim1911]

@@danielvaughn4551 I can't imagine being so creative that you make a JS framework. Nobody ever had that idea before

[@crab-cake]

creative means abstraction which means bloat and complexity when javascript is involved. the cycle of attempting to fix javascript will never end.

[@jurassicthunder]

​@@EvilTim1911that's not what he eluded you dork

[@AmiGanguli]

Using ChatGPT to solve the "blank page problem" is absolutely real, and a game-changer for me. The issue is that, 1. the hardest part of any writing task is getting started, 2. often the task is required, but low value. Get ChatGPT to write version zero for you. Then edit it. Spend as much time editing as you think the task is worth. You can have something crappy, but good enough for most tasks really quickly. For something higher quality, you'll of course need to spend much more time. But you would have had to spend that time anyway, and at least ChatGPT helped you over the initial hump and got you started.

[@notusingmyrealnamegoogle6232]

Only works for cases with 0 original thought.

[@NeroDefogger]

is 2 years of constantly sending to literally every offer I find "trying hard enough"? how long will it take? 5 years? 10 years? I have a limited lifespan man, 2 years without finding a single job is just not compatible with an average human lifespan. "yeah I agree juniors have it bad yeah I feel bad for them" you feeling bad for me does nothing, what the f am I supposed to do?!

[@1989DP3]

The guy simped really hard for AI in this article. Very well summarized in the end.

[@milohoffman274]

The end of Sr Enginners is even more obvious. No one wants to pay for any talent anymore, they all think they can get by with AI and faceless slaves from India.

[@msc8382]

Personal experience/opinion ahead: I've worked with senior engineers at multinational companies. As a senior software engineer with a background in quality assurance and embedded systems, I've noticed a significant drop in the level of seniority worldwide across almost every software-related profession. Many KZbin channels, including this one, are only slightly above the median level of functional engineers. When I look online, it's rare to find someone who truly embodies the spirit of engineering instead of just sharing opinions loosely based on experience. As a seasoned professional in the field, I find that many "senior" engineers are not as knowledgeable as they claim. For some reason, asking them to prove their seniority is considered offensive. As engineers, it is fundamental to demand evidence of expertise, as we should not allocate resources without proven gain. It is the very nature of an engineer(ing job) to never waste your time on assumptions unless its to reduce risk. This "look at me, I'm the best, I don't need to proof myself" mentality needs to stop. People must start proving their claims, or the entire industry will suffer. It's frustrating that I'm seen as unreasonable for insisting that people demonstrate their mastery before I respect them. If you can't handle the burden of proof, then you shouldn't be in this field.

[@dingusfartacus9624]

faceless slaves, lol. They have a face, and they deliver value - commensurate to their pay. Good work costs about the same everywhere in the world. It is just that greedy wallstreet and activist investors are okay with sloppy work so long as they can collect rent.

[@zesky6654]

@@dingusfartacus9624 those same greedy bean counters are going to have a sobering realization when they figure out that we "poor primitives" also like getting paid for our work.

[@ShaleWhark]

No, bad take. As a senior, it still hasn’t been hard to pick up an interview and for years companies tried so hard to outsource to India or wherever they can have it cheaper bc y not companies would love saving money. It hasn’t worked for any company trying to do business for more than 2 years and I think everyone accepted that at this point.

[@deadlydiminuendo2161]

Im sure there are lots of "faceless slaves from India" that are a lot better senior engineers than US developers (and a lot cheaper)

[@davidroberts1037]

As far as coding w chatGPT, i think the ability to use it successfully is entirely language dependent. I have used it extensively for writing Go as the coding patterns have little variations between programmers. More nuanced languages that tolerate more creative use of software patterns will cause issues as there is less chance to establish the patterns needed

[@daphenomenalz4100]

Yeah, imagine writing Rust with llms lmao. Also, i find it good for discovering some good patterns and practices in Go too, which i probably never knew or saw somewhere in a github codebase and forgot. Also, it literally copies exact to exact from github and stackoverflow most of the times 😂, so it's not even like inherently smarter. We already use these products and go through other people codes to learn. I think gpt is just a glorified search engine that let's you search through these products faster 😂

[@9SMTM6]

You know what's bad? Trying it with similar languages, one of the popular, the other one mich less. It will always slip into the popular language 'dialect' and thus make up some hybrid code thats unusable.

[@SPYTHandle]

My respect for how passionate you are about stealing hope from juniors. I'm in tech support because I was not able to get into programing. I like it, I still study it but with a shrivelled heart due to all recent crisis hitting the available junior positions like a truck. Your last words felt like a big brother having your soul's back. Thank you ❤

[@duhproffessionallove2011]

Keep going man, present solutions and work on your on repo. For example I did phone-app testing as a student and (due to luck admittedly) found a position where I'm one of the main guys working out Unit Tests for my company. It's a great way to familiarize myself with all the processes without actually being able to mess up a lot of stuff. You gotta keep putting yourself in positions where the odds are in your favor.

[@CatmanJimbo]

If anything this Chat Gippity blip will result in way more buggy codebases so Support peeps will be in demand!

[@Robert-zc8hr]

Prompting GPT so that it doesn't counting correctly = skill issue. Specifically, LLM tokenize their input, so they can not count or see letters in a word by design, they have to guess the answer (and so they may be easily wrong). If you however separate the letters by space they can see them, so they know how to count. Prompt > How many r are in the word raspberry, spelled: R A S P B E R R Y GPT > The word "raspberry," spelled as "R A S P B E R R Y," contains 3 letter "r"s. LLMs (so long as the architecture doesn't change) will be able to solve all physics before they are able to count letters correctly.

[@whymanen]

The ending of this video is so on point. Im studying front-end and mobile app development at the moment and I’ve pretty much lost all hope. Constantly there is an endless bombardment of news that I am doomed to fail. Because of the industry, because of AI and no jobs.

[@krumbergify]

Don’t give up! We need juniors who can become seniors otherwise we will just have machines to trust by pure faith.

[@deedoodeedoo6382]

Then let me tell you, chatgpt equivalent might pump out code faster than you ever could, but: it does it for small snippets of code, anything larger and it gets lost, besides integrating anything larger from prompts crashes fast, any errors in current bigger project are unfixable by it. It still needs someone between it and the customer, to translate the customers request into code that works, business also needs a person to take responsibility for the result, so you still need to check what it pukes out. The beginning you have will be a lot harder that what we did, likely you'll have to suffer through debugging and making fixes for some outdated projects stuff to gain the work experience for CV and start truly searching for a job from a mid level. Also, the economy right now is bad, let free loans come back in the US and the whole programming world will revitalize. Right now we have the worst slump I've seen in my 10 year career, but it will pass in 1-2 years imo. We won't return to covid hiring craze, but it will get better. Long story short, it will get better, your start will be harder, once you get through the initial hurdle it will become easier (maybe do wordpress pages on commission till then or smthing else doable) it will get better and AI will not replace devs aware of what they are doing, simply because customers don't suddenly become smarter and able to specify their requirements without significant effort from you and management still needs someone to take responsibility when shit fails :D

[@Seba-iz6wc]

@@whymanen nah bro, you’d win

[@artificiyal]

ai makes shittiest frontends

[@AvikNayak_]

@@artificiyal ai is very terrible at writing CSS code.

[@FelipeV3444]

Did you guys hear about the lawyer that used a ChatGPT hallucinated case in court? LegalEagle made a vid about it, it was pretty dumb lol

[@dmitriyrasskazov8858]

This whole thing feels like attaching a third wheel to a bike with bells and whistles and claiming its going to be faster because of more spin going on in the apparatus.

[@alextasarov1341]

I love that analogy 😂a smaller diameter makes the wheel rotate faster, but the speed of the bike is the same, and the peddler requires more effort to overcome additional weight and tire friction.

[@PrakharSrivastava-k2d]

Dude you must try creative writing....what an analogy🤌

[@bananainacup]

Bro I’m literally a journeyman electrician been doing this for 6 years after I dropped out of college. I finished a web dev bootcamp in December because I am desperate to get out of this field. It fucking sucks crawling in attics in the Florida heat, plain and simple. It’s so disheartening to see how terrible the market is for juniors and how everyone keeps saying you’re better off in the trades. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t want to give up but I don’t want to destroy my body to make 25 bucks an hour. Edit: yes you can make a lot of money as a master electrician with your own company, but you won’t make that much as an apprentice or even a journeyman

[@paulweaver5255]

// “stay in the code.” The long game is engineering and you’ll get there if you continue to work on projects on the side while helping folks solve their electrical issues in the meantime. Bootcamps give you false expectations because their bottom line relies on the pervasive illusion of the job market from four years ago. But what I’ve heard from other developers is that it takes time.

[@joonjonjew]

@@paulweaver5255exactly, if no one else is observing this job market. Look at the Doctors + Engineers receiving their Porsche money. WHO ELSE is making that money consistently. I’m not even joking look at society choose your hierarchy.

[@huh5950]

How does the idea of not having jrs make any sense to anyone?

[@bluecup25]

First time I've seen Prime get pissed. But had the same sentiment. And how is 1000 lines of context enough? Sometimes I work of files that are 1000 lines alone, and need to keep track of code in 10 other files.

[@marcoceriani1069]

Same thought. I once saw a single function almost 1000 lines long. But usually the bug is across six of more function calls in different files. And let's not talk about those little changes that simply require you to subvert one of the initial design assumptions. Is the norm in IT to work on basic CRUD service and plain UIs? Is it well paid? Where can I apply?

[@rodrigodanielvittoriali6629]

I'm too inexperienced to be considered a Jr dev by current standards Aaaaand is a pain in the cheeks to become a certified sparky in the US... but fancy tools are much more accessible up there. My only consolation is that I spend my little free time (I'm a father and we're expecting our second before the end of this month) as true senior devs dream: taking care of my animals and crops. We're entering winter here. Regards from argentina, and remember folks: even if the best day to get something done is already past the best second choice is to do it today.

[@Kwazzaaap]

Learn enough to the point where you can lie about your experience with knowledge to back it up. I think this is what most people do. If a company is mismanaged enough to ask for requirements that make no sense, there's no obligation on your side to play along with their incompetence if you can do the job.

[@minnesotasteve]

Junior developers died about 20 years ago when companies began shipping entry level jobs overseas. Thats what I’ve been seeing in minnesota. Maybe this wasn’t true in Silicon Valley but it will go the same route. That’s why it’s hard to find seniors today.

[@zesky6654]

I've talked to too many US-based juniors making 200k + to believe that this is true.

[@doctorgears9358]

Even if what you said is true, which it isn’t. Federal and State contracting can’t be outsourced, especially if it is cleared work. A dude in Pakistan can’t do work that you need to be in a SCIF to do.

[@minnesotasteve]

@@zesky6654 then you are talking to Silicon Valley because nobody in IT outside of that world is making 200k+ as a junior.

[@minnesotasteve]

@@doctorgears9358 I don’t think you realize how few jobs that is.

[@rcoppy]

It’s at least partially true for faang. Google is hiring way more juniors in India and Poland than the US these days (Hyderabad and Bangalore popping off). seniors still get hired stateside, but much more conservatively (headcount is roughly flat). American CS grads frankly just not as competitive, schooling overseas is better and more accessible/affordable so the lower-cost-of-living talent pool is exploding in size. Covid-era remote working tech means that as long as a team is physically co-located/in the same time zone they can be anywhere in the world and collaborate with the rest of the org effectively. (Am a recent-hire faang junior in USA. There are basically none of us in my campus, new juniors come along maybe every three months. Took me a year and a half to close this hiring loop, it was crazy. Most of my friends were a lot less lucky.)

[@samuelklunker9610]

Hey prime, just so you know, I'm one of those newbies trying to become a software dev (self taught) and I just want you to know that your commentary and insight into ai is a big reason why I'm not giving up hope and actually diving deeper into programming than I was before! So thank you! ❤

[@TheGuigaboy]

The thing is that GPT is very good at crafting some things that require some thoth *instantly*. Yesterday I was in need to create a function that get a number and transform in excel column notation (0 = A, 1 = B ... 25 = AA, 26 = AB ... 51 = BA, etc). It is not hard to write this function by yourself, but you can save about 5 minutes by using GPT... And that add up

[@carultch]

I wrote that in less than 5 minutes myself. Function ColLtr (n) as string ' Assign m as the number that determines the final letter, assign k as the number that determines the initial letter dim m as integer dim k as integer ' Divide n by 26 and produce the remainder to determine m. Divide n/26 and floor it, to produce k. As an integer type, it will do this automatically. m = n mod 26 k = n/26 ' 65 is the character index of A, so 65+m determines the character of the final letter with the chr() function. Call this function recursively, to assign k to a letter or group of letters, if k is non-zero. Otherwise ignore k, if k > 0 then ColLtr = ColLtr(k - 1) & chr(65 + m) else ColLtr = chr(65 + m) end if End Function

[@tbunreall]

@@carultch congrats, you worked when you didnt have to. arent you smart?

[@carultch]

@@tbunreall I copied and pasted that from my work from a long time ago.

[@LegalAutomation]

I come from a legal background and made the transition into the legal-tech space a few years ago. I make document automation software for law firms and am an expert in this industry. Your analysis is spot on. Chat GPT is abaolutely terrible for law at the moment. I'm happy to discuss details with you if you like.

[@shampoable]

speaking of electricians, an acquantance of a friend is one, the market's so hot he can't even "politely refuse" certain jobs by giving inflated prices - people accept them no questions asked

[@zesky6654]

Is this a cyclical thing in the trades? I remember hearing about how many of them were completely wiped out during the last financial crash.

[@Nostalgiaforinfi]

​@zesky6654 Construction of residentiral and commercial realestate is always going on. You always need them especially for govt work which doesnt care about costs much.

[@custos3249]

Meh. Worked as a farm hand and construction laborer for just about everything short of plumbing since I was 12, and you couldn't pay me enough to deal with that shit. If you like crawling under houses, operating in 90% humidity, putting yourself out on a limb for materials while not knowing if you'll be paid, and finding out the hard way if the fuse box is properly labeled and there's been no fuckery in the wiring, you do you. I'd rather keep my heart beating at its normal rate.

[@m.s.35]

@@custos3249yeah. Everybody who says "go to the trades i regret becoming a dev!" says it because theyve never worked manual labor. That shit is awful. It's not some magical fairyland where you get paid $150/hr to click two wires together.

[@custos3249]

@@m.s.35 Seriously. That same brother of mine is constantly on me to become a welder. Meanwhile, a close friend's dad worked his entire life as a welder and owned his own business at one time, yet the man refused to teach my buddy welding at all because of the bullshit he's dealt with in the industry. Irony of irony, guy is very anti-union too, and more irony atop that, so is my brother despite being part of a union that's saved his ass a couple times, but just because a few jobs here and there pay exorbitantly doesn't mean the whole industry is like that. It's the exact same garbage sales tactics they used to get people into STEM fields back in high school, and now that there's an overabundance of people seeking jobs with that, it's also gone to shit.

[@drooplug]

I was in the trades, and you aren't making that kind of money unless you own the business or work 100 hours per week.

[@Afro__Joe]

Seconded. Just because an electrical company charges $120/hr doesn't mean that electrician makes even half that. Also, "just become a journeyman" is like saying "just become a senior dev"... good luck. Actually, maybe not quite the best example because the trades have requirements and testing for it, whereas you just need a promotion to sr as a developer.

[@tbunreall]

@@Afro__Joe Also it's hourly, who knows how much you'll actually work in a week

[@drooplug]

@@Afro__Joe That 120 covers capital costs, fuel, the time it takes to travel from job to job, the salary of any office administrators, go-fors, rent, utilities, PTO...

[@retrorewind6042]

I was an electrician back in 2018-2020, and journeymen in the northern virginia area were not making more than 30$ an hour. I think the average was like 24$ an hour at most companies

[@bananainacup]

@@Afro__JoeI’ve been working as a residential electrician, somewhat under the table, for the past 6 years. I make 25 an hour cash, which is the high end for a journeyman in Florida.

[@nickbrunoro8604]

It doesn’t really matter whether the author is right or not. The issue is companies believe people like this and won’t hire juniors as a result.

[@MaliciouSpark]

This is the first video I've seen on your channel and i wanted to say thank you for talking about hope. It means a lot.

[@fuzzy-02]

I don't want to hear about AI news anymore. Its like depression injections

[@donk8961]

Junior roles are dead? Right now all roles are dead and it’s not GPT’s fault. SE-1 role in gumdumb Nebraska? 3,451 applicants, 430 senior. Senior role in Hodunk Wisconsin? 2,109 applicants, 500 with masters degrees. Things are wack I’m just gonna work at Best Buy and publish my own apps until things are unfucked

[@sandman.38]

Man you’re speaking my reality right now. BS ECE MS CS right here, but I even got denied from fucking BestBuy, the fuck is going on.

[@donk8961]

@@sandman.38I’m just trying to work a retail sales position at this point to avoid becoming homeless at the store I worked at in high school. Rough out here, gotta keep lights on till corporate realizes their systems are broken, out of date, out of compliance and that they need us back.

[@marceldiezasch6192]

Weird how the US seems like it's own universe. In Germany, Switzerland, France etc. devs are still in short supply with plenty of job opportunities. It's not as insane as in 2021, but still good.

[@jurassicthunder]

​​@@marceldiezasch6192oh they will be. you think remote workers will not go into those markets? we all speak English now, work online, apply to jobs online. even some of us will relocate to those countries for office positions.

[@nicelypenn]

@@marceldiezasch6192 Sounds like I need to move.

[@Sl33pySage]

I was doing good practicing/working on a project big or small at least once everyday but mounting fustration with not getting a job in programming, family issues surrounding such and articles like this that really compounded my depression I was forced to drop the course I was taking and just stopped all together because it was disheartening. Thanks for the motivation to keep back at it. Hopefully a 3 month break isnt too big a deal? 😅

[@notusingmyrealnamegoogle6232]

3 months is a floating point error in your career

[@lurkoasis9620]

Really happy I watched the video all the way through to the end. Gotten into the habit as a CS student of basically doomscrolling content about how the field I've gone into massive debt for and spent years of life to skill up for basically has no use for me anymore, before I even graduate And as someone who destroyed my body doing shit manual labor for years for low pay, constantly trying to figure out how to balance the time and financial costs of college with the reality of still having to work and pay bills, realizing there are few fields left with a positive ROI considering the cost of college (even with CC) I've honestly felt so hopeless about the future, and with the state of everything else in the US right now (healthcare, housing, inflation, you name it) it was a really unexpected and nice surprise to hear someone with the knowledge and experience to fully understand the situation say that I (and so many others) am still on the right track

[@benbentlin1429]

Prime. If i may call you Prime? I’m a mid 40’s guy in central IL trying to learn all i can and go the self-taught route. Did some college 20 years ago but never finished. Thank you for your ‘never give up’ pep talks, they’ve kept me on track more than once…truly inspiring to watch your videos. Love this man. I always look forward to your content.

[@rodrigodanielvittoriali6629]

"The law is not like programming" Correct. I wish people would've just turned legal procedures and standarize the sheets outta 'em and we'd have widely accessible layouts in order to streamline the process. "You can't be 85% correct" MAAAAAAN I WISH WE WHERE EVEN CLOSE TO THAT. Oh boy, working in the court really changed my perspective on a LOT of stuff. I certainly hope things are different in the US (probably not)

[@zesky6654]

"Correct. I wish people would've just turned legal procedures and standardize the sheets outta 'em and we'd have widely accessible layouts in order to streamline the process." This is already the case for most legal/contract-type stuff, the only ones that still require real lawyers are huge corporate mergers. The actual work that lawyers do is mostly administrative (dealing with bureaucracy) and being a scapegoat when something goes wrong. It's the same with a lot of other professions. The day we can sue a tech comp for a mistake made by an LLM will be the day lawyers go extinct.

[@TheTigerus]

did you just suggested we should write law in javascript?

[@torginus]

Thing about LLMs and writing is that they are token prediction engines - if you feed them mediocre prose, they'll spit out more of them same. I've found that if I manage to produce some quality writing, Claude is pretty good at following up with more.

[@yahyae420]

just fucking graduated

[@SnowDaemon]

🙏

[@Zuranthus]

💀

[@blaze4lifedog]

watch the whole video. its basically a dumbass shilling his book

[@jaydenrussell7491]

I got a job in tech as a data analyst job is great and flexible but I have decided im not finishing my bachelors degree as im still a intern and awaiting my emulation in November if im not promoted then I will not pursue comp sci but finish up my trade. Yes im doing trade school while working part time as data analyst .

[@ThickNick02]

Same here bro, graduated May and have only gotten one interview, no offer. Good luck keep trying 🫡

[@KTLaughter]

You have earned a subscriber, sir. I clicked on this video thinking it would be another person regurgitating how hopeless the job market is for new grads and juniors, but instead I feel a little bit better. Even if I can’t manage to find a job now, you’re right. This model of ‘no junior developers’ is not going to work forever and will always fail eventually. It’s just not sustainable. I’ve spent the last few weeks terrified to even put a resume together because I already know I don’t qualify for any of those 5 years of experience “entry” level positions that are everywhere. It really does feel hopeless right now, especially with articles like this being plastered all around the web. You did an amazing job critiquing this article and articulating your points (and I love the way you pronounce GPT as “Jippity”). Thanks for making things seem a little more positive and hopeful. Good luck to all of my fellow new grads and junior engineers out there. We all decided to go down this path back when everyone was telling us how secure the market was, only to arrive on the other end with tons of jobs, but none of them targeted towards us.

[@SnowDaemon]

I don't agree with Prime on a lot of things (especially politics) but i stand with Prime more than ever right now. this is gatekeeping. its selling out. its taking hope away from the next gen (and even the current gen).... all for the sake of hype and VC money. and if we're wrong...if this is more than hype...thats even worse. this world is fucked. this will not only effect our industry, it will find it's way into every industry. we will be worth: ZERO. no hope. no goals. no aspirations. no motivation. no passion. its very sad.

[@jmickeyd53]

The place where LLMs are extremely useful in law is in discovery. Needle in the haystack queries of huge amounts of unstructured data is a massive part of the legal process and something transformers can do pretty well.

[@Fe22234]

Still not good enough with potential Hallucinations

[@indiesigi7807]

@@Fe22234 People seem to focus on the flaws and ignore completely how amazing it is that it can do what it does.

[@jmickeyd53]

@@Fe22234 Semantic retrieval doesn't have hallucinations since it's not generating anything.

@@Fe22234 Have you even used AI since after GPT 3.5? Hallucinations are not an issue.

[@grokitall]

of course they are. llms are based on statistical models, and only provides something plausible. it contains zero feedback in the model to try and improve the likelihood that it has any connection to reality. for that you need white box ai systems, which statistical systems can never be. white box systems require a different level of quality in the input data, which is then kept so you can trace where the rules came from. you also need to quality check the output to make sure it is not producing garbage, and then you need to find out what created the crap. the biggest problem with using llms is that they are currently automated copyright infringement machines, leaving both the creator of the llm and the user legally exposed, which is why most open source projects are looking at an outright ban on ai generated content. also you are left with no defense, as the user just says i trusted the output of the ai, and the owner cannot track back to exclude it from being an exact copy. keep an eye out for the masses of lawsuits currently being planned.

[@paulgaddis4329]

The only reason I'm not doing HVAC in the south is my body gave out on me due to a genetic disease. I was just starting my own business when it hit me full swing. Here's the problem with eliminating jrs. in any industry. What happens when those seniors need to retire? Jrs have always been the replacement for the Srs. due to time. Linear algebraic calculus and probable statstics can never replace education/people-as-infrastructure.

[@BittermanAndy]

Yeah, but if you're a business, looking to operate efficiently today, "we might not be able to hire anyone 10 years from now" probably doesn't move the needle on your AI decision very much.

[@Zuranthus]

they become mexicans

[@paulgaddis4329]

@@BittermanAndy and those businesses will go bankrupt from failures of service to deliver on promised contracts. Capitalism is survival of the fittest right? FAFO for the corporations that replace people with AI.

[@RomeoTheOptimist]

Juniors can use LLMs as well, now it's just another tool in a toolbelt. Jr+AI will produce much better results than AI alone, and since LLM is used the result will be ready pretty fast.

[@pluto8404]

It will be like accounting software. It killed a lot of small business accountants, but any sizable corporation needs a professional.

[@Ademus5]

Not a single jr/middle frontend position in my county💀

[@L1vevvir3]

That message at the end 100% reignited my hope in breaking into the field. I'm currently just learning stuff on my own here and there but it is scary when you have people like this writing an article scaring people away essentially. Thank you for that reassurance.

[@dan-bz7dz]

We spend more time reading than writing code.

[@KenJFZhong]

Why not to? I think we should read more and write less code!

[@SimGunther]

There was another vid called "Senior Engineers are a thing of the past", so what software engineers will be left over today, people that have 30+ years experience in Gleam?

[@wedding_photography]

I know a lawyer guy, and he feeds all his assignments into LLMs, gets nearly perfect results. His bosses are super happy about the quality of his work. So yeah, it's true, and not only juniors are affected. As the LLMs get better, most mid and senior guys will become too expensive to keep.

[@numanunal6699]

So all high paying careers are cooked. Wow !!!! Thanks to fucking a.I , fuck open ai and all those Silicon Valley morons

[@austintaylor7743]

Man I needed to hear that ending! So much doom and gloom, but I’ve taken the leap to try and do something I’m actually interested in and enjoy doing for a living. Gotta just keep pushing🎉

[@johndevnoza4223]

This stressed me out so much, and I'm very glad that I watched the video fully! Prime just brought back my hope at 29:35 . I just love it. Thanks again!

[@web9529]

Tried gp4 yesterday. It used invalid syntax for the templating language. Even after correcting it/showing it a proper file it couldn't use the correct syntax. What do these people do at their jobs? edit: Also my guess is It can't read docs then understand something. Therefore good luck with any internal tooling.

[@collan580]

I am a junior dev and GPT4 makes so many mistakes and if something is not used wildly it misses the point completely. It can be useful if you are stuck or need something that is basically boilerplate, but I cannot imagine writing anything bigger than a function with GPT that is custom and not just some bootstrapped project.

[@sealsharp]

The trick is to ask it things that someone else on the internet has done already.

[@anthonyarcher-u4r]

@@collan580 If my dog arnus has diabetes and the cad does not which obne is more likely to catch the caterpillars? Which words were spelled incorrectly in that last statement? ChatGPT ChatGPT In the statement you provided, the following words were spelled incorrectly: "arnus" should be "Arnis" "cad" should be "cat" Corrected statement: "If my dog Arnis has diabetes and the cat does not, which one is more likely to catch the caterpillars?" In this corrected version: "Arnis" is the corrected spelling of your dog's name. "cat" is the correct term for a feline animal, replacing "cad." ChatGPT can make mistakes. Check important info.

[@yet0another0account]

@@collan580 I'm a senior dev and I can confirm Copilot is just useless. You have to explain so much to it that you might as well write the code yourself. The best it can do is copypaste snippets from stackoverflow - but I didn't need help with that.

[@Sameer.Trivedi]

Ngl this article is off by a few hundred miles from the truth.

[@svuvich]

I tried "chat-first programming" an active search on a table in JS. It was a headache, chat never got it right, and it couldn't fix its mistakes despite me providing full descriptions. I just started from scratch the next day and did it in a few hours myself despite having close to 0 experience with JS. That was with GPT-4o btw Quick python scripting is fine tho

[@zb2747]

There is no death of the junior engineer. Junior/new grad pipelines will continue to be a thing. New/fresh devs provide a new perspective to any organization. It's just now the juniors will have to a) work like there mid level due to rapid development these days or b) expected to come somewhat 'ready made' meaning they're extremely talented but due to lack of experience they are limited to early career roles. The economy is forcing a lot companies hands as a result every hire counts or should I say costs. Competition is high and companies are getting leaner with the amount of dev/employees. Besides, in this industry every dev regardless of level is always learning and is somewhat a 'junior' in some capacity in a particular area within the technology stack. Continue to build, dream, work, and create - the RIGHT people will always see your value and worth. Stop feeding into outside noise. Focus on what you can control which is yourself

[@pernguin1724]

As someone getting into this industry right now, there's been a lot of those types of articles blowing up which has been discouraging. I was actually hesitant to watch this because I didn't want to see another person tell me it's hopeless to pursue my goals. So, thank you for saying what you did and encouraging everyone to keep working hard and learning. I, and others, needed to hear that!

[@LeeHalford]

There are law specific LLMs, trained on previous cases, and well written documents by previous lawyers. It really doesn't hallucinate as much as you would think. Also, lawyers speak in a very specific and boring way.

[@LeeHalford]

Lawyers are soulless when they write, they have to be. They aren't all writing like they are bombastic in the movies.

[@yuriy5376]

​@@LeeHalford so you're telling me not all lawyers talk to one another like Harvey and Mike?

[@daphenomenalz4100]

Still handing human lives to llm is stupid and imo evil too, you deserve to lose your job if you depend too much on ai for someone else's life. It's fine for basic paperwork, but as the video said, that firm is too much depended on ai

[@sepro5135]

I mean, the ai drafts up the basic stuff and the senior looks over it. Nothing bad or evil about it. The actual lawyer has full responsibility at the end of his day. Wether the original doc was drafted by an LLM or a new hire is pretty much irrelevant

[@zesky6654]

@@daphenomenalz4100 Most legal documents are copy-pasted from existing templates, there is realistically very little an LLM can contribute in writing documents. It could be used to extract data effectively but even that isn't a big enough part of the work to write home about. Source: Worked in legal tech for 2 years.

[@ContagiousRepublic]

In the future, law or court realities that modify how law actually operates will be something law firms don't understand because chatGPT doesn't understand it. Juniors will be fired. Seniors will gain blindspots, which a malintentioned GPT coder could shift on and off. Specialists able to see the blindspots will generally be rich and corrupted, or poor and honest. LAW WILL SHIFT AS A RESULT.

[@alexaustin6961]

Why do we think that LLMs being able to code is so uprooting? In my experience the coding has been the easy part of the job anyway. Infrastructure and architecture has often been more of the time sinks for developers on teams that I have been in

[@RawrxDev]

Because AI tech bro's are actually talentless hacks that want to feel validated, their view of a software engineer is someone on a keyboard typing for 8 hours.

[@collan580]

Its not the coding part, its the overselling of its capabilities. GPT can code, but some people talk about it like it writes projects for them. My experience with it that its a good tool an it can have productivity boosting effects but it's faaar from good

[@Xe054]

Hey Prime, thank you for sharing that insight at the end. I had previously read that article and I didn't realize how it would negatively impact my view of the future. I've been programming day to day but not with the same vigor as I used to. I started believing I would never get a job as a software engineer. Your message gives me hope. Thank you.

[@pixels_per_minute]

I feel like this article is a showcase of people who fell for the AI pipe dream and tricked enough of their co-workers to believe in it as well. This stuff isn't even AI. The term it for marketing to remind people of the AI seen in science fiction, and to pretend like their algorithms are like those machines. Its just silly, and these people aren't critically thinking for themselves.

[@DerekSmit]

I think in the law example, you might miss that it takes a lot of work to process all the documents for a case. So a system like chatGPT can really improve the speed if you are searching for a specific thing in a huge pile of text.

[@grokitall]

except this is exactly when you cannot use online for it, as your secret client document is then fed into the model, and might get presented back to your opponent when they do the same. book authors have already spotted this happening a lot, and lawsuits are already on their way.

[@collan580]

Yeah but law has a lot of exceptions and it is famous being hard to understand. GPT may be faster but it can easily miss things which can cause a huge disadvantage. Not to mention that laws can be specific to certain areas and circumstances and you need to connect the dots so its not enough to know it it has to understand it. Its kind of like the pictures AI makes, it does not understand what it is creating, thus there are flaws on them that are easily recognisable for humans, like extra fingers, legs, wrong ratios etc. The mistakes with pictures are more obvious but try to apply it to the LLMs and you will discover the same patterns.

[@Isaac-wl6wu]

control f and you aren't feeding a court documents to OpenAI

[@grokitall]

@@Isaac-wl6wu but to prepare the case, you are not feeding the publicly disclosed and filed court documents, especially if you are the defense. you have a whole stack of documents you do not have to disclose until you use them in defense at trial. these may contain information which would benefit your opponent, but which as defense council you have a duty to not disclose under client confidentiality rules. a case could be made that you could use such a system in an offline only mode, but only if you can be certain that it does not phone home and share the confidential data. in any event, statistical ai still only creates a plausible response, not a correct one. that needs symbolic ai, with lots of manual work to populate it.

[@AndreiTheDev]

My respect for the video, the article seems to have a very misleading title since in the middle it just talks about AI🤣. But my opinion related to the job market is that you really have to be lucky to find a tech job nowadays and I'm not even talking about some fancy one. I started seriously programming 4 years ago when the job market was "booming" and I found myself this past few months looking for a new job and it feels like every application sent gets in the trash, out of 300 applications sent I got 40 no's and 3 interview invites (and the numbers are this bad because I applied only to remote work which companies advertise as remote work and then ask you for job site), the others? I have no idea what happened with them... So yeah that's the market nowadays, I got sick after this experience and started working on some businesses cause seems easier than getting a shitty paid job.

[@WChrisW-oy3mn]

I have applied for an intermediate level job opened for almost half a year. They kept reopen it and I have kept applied to it. I even asked a friend from that company to refer me. Still they won't give me a chance cause I am under experienced after worked as a junior for over two years.

[@oompalumpus699]

Go for customer service or sales. Work for three or six months, get to know the management and get to know how the business works. Then tell HR or your supervisor/manager you have dev skills. There are so many companies that have internal job postings. These are only available for employees. I know people who couldn't get a job in IT. They worked as customer service then applied for their company's IT department. A trend I noticed is that companies want to give tech jobs to people who already know a lot about their business.

[@joonjonjew]

You need the experience + connection(s). Once I learned this in healthcare, I screamed at how society plays the “game”. Whoever you know is getting paid bank, KNOWS someone at a similar net worth. This is your **network** people, your backup options are your networks. Work for Raytheon [I don’t care anymore about moral] just get that damn 100k job.

[@zachpalmer5538]

Thanks you made me feel better a little. I wanted to get into software dev for like 6 years before I did I was a single dad struggling and couldn't afford to do college I made the jump right before covid got my associates and now working on my bachelors and was so happy and proud of myself and now it feels like it's over before I even started

[@DonTheDeveloper]

I just got done reviewing this article. I had a similar response to this. Thank you for sharing that at the end.

[@Rhapsohd]

Junior dev here, got into the industry just over a year ago. Articles like this are dime a dozen these days and very discouraging, kudos to you for keeping things in perspective.

[@0xzi]

I wish I would have started programming 10 years ago instead of wasting my entire 20s doing nothing but playing videogames. That was my choice and now I must pay for it. Programming has changed my life, but unfortunately it's hard to think that it's a viable choice for a career path. Even with references and networking, I'm still closing in on 1000 apps and have only had 3 interviews. I assume because I have zero relevant industry experience. Projects are fun to build but they've been pretty useless as far as getting anywhere goes. I'm still trying, and I'm going to keep trying, but trying doesn't pay bills. Whether I like it or not it has to take the back seat, which is making me feel even worse.

[@grokitall]

put some small amount of time into helping open source projects, then you can show your commit log as evidence of experience.

[@jamestucker4800]

1000 apps?? Why not make one productive app that solves people's problems?

[@0xzi]

@@jamestucker4800 job apps.

[@ZxRipredxZ]

​@@jamestucker4800 i think he means job applications

[@TheERAUEagle]

+100 points for the WoT reference! Did you read the books?

[@therealyash.sharma]

Thank you for those last 90 secs. I am just starting out as a engineer and articles like these kills all the hope to pursue further and put people in a dilemma to do anything

[@youkers5841]

Just want to say as someone who starts his first Jr Software Engineer gig in a week, I really appreciate what you said at the end. Much of the thought bubble around Jr Devs is unabashed doomerism - and it's not the best feeling in the world when everyone is telling you the 2014 Toyota Corolla you've grinded years for is soon to be replaced by a Cybertruck.

[@Evilanious]

Yesterday I asked an AI to correct a syntax problem and it suggested two changes. One solved my problem, the other did nothing and was premised on a non-existant syntax rule. Perhaps I'm not senior enough to see it's brilliance but I still see AI get things wrong almost every time I ask something and I'm no senior by any stretch of the imagination.

[@nicholassakamoto8083]

One time I used chatGPT to check my homework and it made a simple arithmetic mistake and it was adamant that it wasn’t wrong. I tried convincing it for fun but it wouldn’t budge lol

[@IvanRandomDude]

We were all replaced by AI last year. I don't see the point of articles like this in 2024 when this was already predicted and happened in last year's articles.

[@BBloggg]

As a tradesman who is into software. I always tell my SWE friends “software is just abstracted electricity”

[@yuriy5376]

And electricity is just abstracted quantum mechanics 😂

[@jcjc5702]

@@yuriy5376 fluid mechanics is abstracted electricity

[@ThatLucasGuy93]

I hate to be your AI antagonist, but I'm a professional developer who uses the LLMs extensively in every file I create now, and what you're saying just isn't grounded in reality. What most people miss about talking to the AI is that you actually *should* coach it in a back and forth in a way that sounds very much like talking to a human junior. Your first naive prompt is not going to get quality output - it takes patience and iteration. But once you finally do mind meld with it it is capable of generating what you want at 20x the productivity of any junior, and with basically every piece of code that's ever been written at its fingertips. I still do a lot of vetting and testing for sure, like I'm very much in the drivers seat, and I think talk of replacing all junior talent is overstated, but it is absolutely true that tech will be increasingly dominated by creative senior devs who are AI assisted.

[@jusblaze99]

You are correct and he is coping HARD. A lot of these guys who talk about AI like him are just neurotic and scared of change. Just look at how "jokingly" uncomfortable he got at the C+ nuget memers. Its just hard headed 'tism imo.

[@christiancompiles]

I’m glad I watched the whole thing through to see your perspective! Love the passion!