Tangentially related, I'm starting to think LLM assisted coding will increase the jobs in software engineering.
Think about it: code is cheap now. You'll have accountants realizing they can create scripts to automate their work flow, so they hack together something. These scripts will become the backbone of the accounting pipeline of a company. Now someone needs to productionalize and maintain these scripts, but the accountants don't even have the vocabulary required for that, so they hire a software engineer to do so.
A simplified example, but I can see that happening. The only (personal) issue I have with this is that the LLMs get to take the fun part of the job.
I think that technologies will continue to commoditize and arrive at the global mean (median?), so the need for accountants to have the vocabulary just disappear. They will say what they want and it will be coded, deployed, with CDNs and firewalls and whatnot, the domains will be bought. We are not that far from this state already.
So, I don't buy this Jevons paradox idea for software engineering. I think these explanations that as the software development process becomes more efficient, the need for software developers will increase is incorrect in the context of LLM adoption. Instead, I think it should be phrased as the LLMs become more efficient and widespread, the need for LLMs will increase. Reduction in developer demand will be tangential.
And I am saying this wishing this wasn't true being a developer myself.
Exactly. I envision this future too. But we'll come back to a divide in what we call software engineering vs. software development as a whole lot becomes more trades level work outside of a few specialized areas. Frankly, it sounds appealing to be a clanker whisperer, part-time in my retirement doing the kinda work you mention. I started my career building those small business automation and loved it.
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Tangentially related, I'm starting to think LLM assisted coding will increase the jobs in software engineering.
Think about it: code is cheap now. You'll have accountants realizing they can create scripts to automate their work flow, so they hack together something. These scripts will become the backbone of the accounting pipeline of a company. Now someone needs to productionalize and maintain these scripts, but the accountants don't even have the vocabulary required for that, so they hire a software engineer to do so.
A simplified example, but I can see that happening. The only (personal) issue I have with this is that the LLMs get to take the fun part of the job.
I think that technologies will continue to commoditize and arrive at the global mean (median?), so the need for accountants to have the vocabulary just disappear. They will say what they want and it will be coded, deployed, with CDNs and firewalls and whatnot, the domains will be bought. We are not that far from this state already.
So, I don't buy this Jevons paradox idea for software engineering. I think these explanations that as the software development process becomes more efficient, the need for software developers will increase is incorrect in the context of LLM adoption. Instead, I think it should be phrased as the LLMs become more efficient and widespread, the need for LLMs will increase. Reduction in developer demand will be tangential.
And I am saying this wishing this wasn't true being a developer myself.
Exactly. I envision this future too. But we'll come back to a divide in what we call software engineering vs. software development as a whole lot becomes more trades level work outside of a few specialized areas. Frankly, it sounds appealing to be a clanker whisperer, part-time in my retirement doing the kinda work you mention. I started my career building those small business automation and loved it.