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With AI looming, is there still space for new coders? (self.programming)

submitted 9 months ago by d0ct0r0nline to c/[email protected]

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For some background, I originally wanted to break into programming back when I was in college but drifted more into desktop tech support and now systems administration. SysAdmin work is draining me, though, and I want to pick back up programming and see if I can make a career out of it, but industry seems like it could be moving in a direction to rely on AI for coding. Everything I've heard has said AI is not there yet, but if it's looking like it hits a point where it reaches an ability to fully automate coding, should I even bother? Am I going to be obsolete after a year? Five years?

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[–] fidodo 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

AI will trivialize the day to day work of programming, the really hard part of programming is being able to put together complex systems in a maintainable way. It's really more of a project structure problem than it is a programming problem. Best way to future proof yourself is to focus on the higher level architectural challenges and putting together complex infrastructure as opposed to learning things like sorting algorithms (although I don't think interviewing has caught up with that yet). LLM powered systems may eventually get to the point where it can even replace architectural tasks, but at that point almost all office jobs will be obsolete.

EDIT: Another thought, getting out of tech now is like getting out of tech right before the Internet took off. Yes AI will replace a ton of jobs and there's going to be a big reckoning, but there's a shit ton of work to get these systems in place in a reliable way. The next Gen of AI is super capable, but it's also pretty jank, and getting it to work to it's capability will require a ton of work which provides a ton of opportunity to get in on companies that will become big when they do it well.