This isn’t a lunatic. This is someone trying to make a point about companies thinking they can use AI to replace devs. Poe’s Law is on heavy display here in these comments.
Whether or not you have experienced it, there is currently a trend both in recruiting and in millionaire leadership dialogue toward dropping devs for AI codegen. CEOs that don’t understand how anything works (eg Salesforce) think you can just not hire devs because Google’s inflated AI stats that included basic autocomplete in their full AI codegen numbers indicate AI can code. Boards believe generative AI is capable of things it won’t be able to touch for decades. I have to deal with idiotic AI questions from Fortune 500 companies every fucking week.
From a hiring perspective, it’s becoming incredibly difficult to weed out AI bullshit. For every one qualified candidate I get, I’ve had to drop five or more in a fucking tech screen because, while codegen has given them enough to pass a basic hiring screen that used to weed out a lot more, there’s zero fucking ability to code without Copilot or critical understanding of the code it generates. When I was starting out, the same problem existed at university but got filtered out after graduation fairly quickly.
The non lunatic here is extending that to other disciplines because it’s a natural next question. He’s not exactly applying a slippery slope; it’s sort of there underneath.
Edit: valid criticism of the post is that you have to have a degree to code. That’s bullshit. After my first degree, I went back for CS and dropped out because it was a waste of time. It limited my job pool initially; this far into my career it really does nothing. I’ve hired some solid bootcamp devs. I’ve seen shitty bootcamp devs. I’ve also seen a bunch of CS masters who have no fucking clue how to ship production code but can wax poetic about algorithm design. Since I don’t run an R&D department, that doesn’t matter 95% of the time.
He’s a lunatic because his position is that it won’t be a problem. You just train programmers enough that they’ll go into the workforce as senior developers.
But that’s not how any of the professions he mentioned works:
doctors - residency (like an internship) followed by a first job (probably accompanied/watched over by a senior?)
plumbers - apprenticeship (like an internship) followed by first job, usually accompanied by a senior
Software engineering works the same way, you get an internship, then a first job, and both are usually under a senior. In fact, it’s not until about 10 years in that I’d consider you an actual senior, and there are levels above that as well.
There’s pretty much no industry where you pop out of school at a senior level, there’s a reason experience is expected for most roles. I’ll only ask about it if you put something interesting, like a relevant project or whatever.
From a hiring perspective, it’s becoming incredibly difficult to weed out AI bullshit. For every one qualified candidate I get, I’ve had to drop five or more in a fucking tech screen
God I’m so afraid to lose job now because I could never survive an interview these days.
I used to shine for things like takehome interview code problems and shit like that, where I had a chance to pause and think a bit and look up definitions and shit.
But those kinds of toy programs are actually the things that AI is actually good at, so now I can only differentiate myself by coding live in front of interviewers and memorizing trivia, both of which I’m terrible at, and don’t reflect actual work.
What’s worse is that we ask a bunch of OOP questions at my company, but I actually hate OOP. I try to work in some FP questions, but those are really hard to ask without using similarly academic language (e.g. describe closure/thunk/partial application and what differentiates them). A lot of people don’t know the terminology while knowing the application, because we only cover the terminology in one class in the middle of the curriculum (for OOP; FP was an elective for me), and it’s not useful in actual work.
I just want to know if you know what you’re doing, and unfortunately, a live coding session usually does the best non at that. Yeah, we’re probably missing out on some great devs that just can’t perform in an interview, but we’re also not having to fire bad devs as much.
Between my workday and my family, when am I going to have time to make a portfolio of projects that are complex enough that an AI couldn’t have generated them?
Edit: valid criticism of the post is that you have to have a degree to code. That’s bullshit.
Same. I didn’t finish even one degree, I’m entirely self taught. I have two prestige positions on my res. Breaking out is incredibly difficult under these circumstances, but once you have one good position that you’ve held long enough to prove you could do the job, education doesn’t matter. You’ll probably get at least a phone screening and if you know how to chat with people (not something that comes naturally to everyone), you should likely get a chance to prove yourself in real interviews.
Note: I bombed an interview to an embarrassing degree and got hired by one of the former interviewers when I applied again after leveling up.
As a senior dev who does second round interviews (technical), I certainly ignore education on resumes unless it’s an intern or junior position. Experience matters far more to me.
This isn’t a lunatic. This is someone trying to make a point about companies thinking they can use AI to replace devs. Poe’s Law is on heavy display here in these comments.
Whether or not you have experienced it, there is currently a trend both in recruiting and in millionaire leadership dialogue toward dropping devs for AI codegen. CEOs that don’t understand how anything works (eg Salesforce) think you can just not hire devs because Google’s inflated AI stats that included basic autocomplete in their full AI codegen numbers indicate AI can code. Boards believe generative AI is capable of things it won’t be able to touch for decades. I have to deal with idiotic AI questions from Fortune 500 companies every fucking week.
From a hiring perspective, it’s becoming incredibly difficult to weed out AI bullshit. For every one qualified candidate I get, I’ve had to drop five or more in a fucking tech screen because, while codegen has given them enough to pass a basic hiring screen that used to weed out a lot more, there’s zero fucking ability to code without Copilot or critical understanding of the code it generates. When I was starting out, the same problem existed at university but got filtered out after graduation fairly quickly.
The non lunatic here is extending that to other disciplines because it’s a natural next question. He’s not exactly applying a slippery slope; it’s sort of there underneath.
Edit: valid criticism of the post is that you have to have a degree to code. That’s bullshit. After my first degree, I went back for CS and dropped out because it was a waste of time. It limited my job pool initially; this far into my career it really does nothing. I’ve hired some solid bootcamp devs. I’ve seen shitty bootcamp devs. I’ve also seen a bunch of CS masters who have no fucking clue how to ship production code but can wax poetic about algorithm design. Since I don’t run an R&D department, that doesn’t matter 95% of the time.
He’s a lunatic because his position is that it won’t be a problem. You just train programmers enough that they’ll go into the workforce as senior developers.
But that’s not how any of the professions he mentioned works:
Software engineering works the same way, you get an internship, then a first job, and both are usually under a senior. In fact, it’s not until about 10 years in that I’d consider you an actual senior, and there are levels above that as well.
There’s pretty much no industry where you pop out of school at a senior level, there’s a reason experience is expected for most roles. I’ll only ask about it if you put something interesting, like a relevant project or whatever.
God I’m so afraid to lose job now because I could never survive an interview these days.
I used to shine for things like takehome interview code problems and shit like that, where I had a chance to pause and think a bit and look up definitions and shit.
But those kinds of toy programs are actually the things that AI is actually good at, so now I can only differentiate myself by coding live in front of interviewers and memorizing trivia, both of which I’m terrible at, and don’t reflect actual work.
Yeah, it sucks.
What’s worse is that we ask a bunch of OOP questions at my company, but I actually hate OOP. I try to work in some FP questions, but those are really hard to ask without using similarly academic language (e.g. describe closure/thunk/partial application and what differentiates them). A lot of people don’t know the terminology while knowing the application, because we only cover the terminology in one class in the middle of the curriculum (for OOP; FP was an elective for me), and it’s not useful in actual work.
I just want to know if you know what you’re doing, and unfortunately, a live coding session usually does the best non at that. Yeah, we’re probably missing out on some great devs that just can’t perform in an interview, but we’re also not having to fire bad devs as much.
Then you should probably have a portfolio of projects.
Between my workday and my family, when am I going to have time to make a portfolio of projects that are complex enough that an AI couldn’t have generated them?
Same. I didn’t finish even one degree, I’m entirely self taught. I have two prestige positions on my res. Breaking out is incredibly difficult under these circumstances, but once you have one good position that you’ve held long enough to prove you could do the job, education doesn’t matter. You’ll probably get at least a phone screening and if you know how to chat with people (not something that comes naturally to everyone), you should likely get a chance to prove yourself in real interviews.
Note: I bombed an interview to an embarrassing degree and got hired by one of the former interviewers when I applied again after leveling up.
As a senior dev who does second round interviews (technical), I certainly ignore education on resumes unless it’s an intern or junior position. Experience matters far more to me.