Well ... bumped up my Claude subscription from Pro to Max and closed out my OpenAI accounts. It's a drop in the ocean but I'll sleep better knowing I did the right thing. Thanks ChatGPT! It was good knowing you.
Yes but is AI really getting you unstuck or are you playing a game of whack-a-mole where it fixes one bug and generates several others that you are unaware off (just one example)?
But ... but ... your productivity as an engineer shoots up! You can take on more tasks and ship more!
-- Dumbass Engineering Director who has never written a line of code in their life.
Unfortunately, with these types of software simpleton's making decisions we are going to see way more push for AI usage and thus higher productivity expectations. They cannot wrap their heads around the fact (for starters) that AI is not deterministic so that increases the overhead on testing, security, requirements, integrations etc. making all those productivity gains evaporate. Worse (like the author mentioned), it makes your engineer less creative and more burnt-out.
Let's be honest here. Engineers picked this career broadly for 2 reasons, creativity and money. With AI, the creativity aspect is taken away and you are now more of a tester. As for money, those same dumbass decision makers are now going to view this skillset as a commodity and find people who can easily be trained in to "AI Engineers" for way less money to feed inputs.
I am all for technological evolution and welcome it but this isn't anything like that. It is purely based on profits, shareholders and any but building good, proper software systems. Quality be damned. Profession of Software Development be damned. We will regret it in the future.
Well said! I wonder if it is like this in the mechanical / electrical engineering space or if the Math n Physics is scary enough to keep the riff-raff out. We've made it too easy for the non-engineering folks and now they're getting involved and disrupting our flow of work. Just like the author (a psych major who's never written a line of production code in life).
I’ve always been vocal about this ... engineers are at the core of our business because they build and ship. Everyone else, myself included as an engineering manager exists to support them in doing exactly that. We don’t create value by holding meetings, drafting roadmaps, or removing blockers ... those are simply the means to an end. We create value when a product is built and shipped.
It really is that simple.
The writing gives the impression of someone speaking about hands-on technical work without a clear understanding of what that actually entails. After reviewing the author’s public LinkedIn profile, it appears their background may be more aligned with product and process management than with hands-on engineering, which could explain the disconnect.
"We've had bathroom scales for over a century, yet as a society, we are more obese than ever."
Exactly! Couple decades ago they blamed human stupidity on lack of information. Look at us now with all the data available at our fingertips. We are so well informed that we should be better humans but we aren't.
Coming back to the Apple Watch (and alternatives) perhaps what we need along with all these "insights" are a shock collar (yes, like the one for a dog) that serves as a motivation to get off one's ass and get in to better shape. I'll bet that'll sell like hotcakes /s
You, Sir, have an amazing way with words. Thank you for sharing your experiences. If it ever comes to a 3rd act for you, do consider a career in writing / blogging especially to share those stories you had the luxury to live through.