I can relate to these. What’s been sad tho is hearing on interviews artists (broad term) say things like art must come from humans to have meaning, but AI is good for stuff like code. I often feel like we are in the same bucket (but maybe that’s what happens after you take the FP pill & down similar rabbit holes).
people are more likely to think their field is special and cannot be done justice by GenAI, but everything else they arent an expert on (ie lower ability to discern slop) is fair game
And since nobody starts in a field as an expert, GenAI is fair game for everything.
What’s even more terrible is that once people see it as another tool on the workbench, are trained that way, and grow up that way, they won’t even understand what we’re all whining about.
I think part of the problem is that many developers don’t have much self-respect and have trouble valuing their own work, even though we tend to get compensated very well for that work - an interesting paradox!
It makes some sense though, as “the best code is no code”, and almost everyone has seen their hard work get unused or replaced by something else.
On top of that the general public tends to view coding as menial and rigid, something that requires no creativity.
even though we tend to get compensated very well for that work - an interesting paradox!
I suspect they’re even connected… if you’re used to extreme external validation then it’s easy to neglect building up an internal sense of what or why you’re even doing.
I think at some point (probably the late 90s to early 00s), coding transitioned from something done as a public good to something engineered to make as much money as possible, and that’s when the market was flooded with devs who saw it that way too.
I imagine there’s a lot of overlap between these folks and the “you’ll get left behind” crowd.
Probably not a hot take: a lot of devs are overcompensated for a job that leaves them with quite a bit of free time during the day, or with a lot of overhead spent in ceremonies and design meetings that aren’t really necessary.
They’re not over compensated since do business makes more from them than their compensation. But they are highly compensated compared to many fields yes
No, I do mean overcompensated. I’m unemployed right now, and the salary ranges I see in descriptions for senior-level positions are absurd. I don’t think anyone needs to make more than $200k a year, whether they’re a CEO or writing code.
Sure, I don’t think anyone needs to make over $50k a year. But that doesn’t mean they’re overcompensated. I had a coworker once who through one month of work netted the company over a million a year forever. He was woefully undercompensated relative to his value to the company at 200k
I can relate to these. What’s been sad tho is hearing on interviews artists (broad term) say things like art must come from humans to have meaning, but AI is good for stuff like code. I often feel like we are in the same bucket (but maybe that’s what happens after you take the FP pill & down similar rabbit holes).
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people are more likely to think their field is special and cannot be done justice by GenAI, but everything else they arent an expert on (ie lower ability to discern slop) is fair game
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“It’s horrible at my particular programming language & in my field, but I can trust its plausible responses for things I understand less well”
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Ah yes, the Gell-Mann amnesia effect in a different medium.
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And since nobody starts in a field as an expert, GenAI is fair game for everything.
What’s even more terrible is that once people see it as another tool on the workbench, are trained that way, and grow up that way, they won’t even understand what we’re all whining about.
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I think part of the problem is that many developers don’t have much self-respect and have trouble valuing their own work, even though we tend to get compensated very well for that work - an interesting paradox!
It makes some sense though, as “the best code is no code”, and almost everyone has seen their hard work get unused or replaced by something else.
On top of that the general public tends to view coding as menial and rigid, something that requires no creativity.
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This seems like a facet of imposter syndrome to me.
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Interesting observation! We know that impostor syndrome is quite widespread in our industry.
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I suspect they’re even connected… if you’re used to extreme external validation then it’s easy to neglect building up an internal sense of what or why you’re even doing.
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Y’all need to try more languages then! “One way to do it” is overrated :P
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I think at some point (probably the late 90s to early 00s), coding transitioned from something done as a public good to something engineered to make as much money as possible, and that’s when the market was flooded with devs who saw it that way too.
I imagine there’s a lot of overlap between these folks and the “you’ll get left behind” crowd.
Probably not a hot take: a lot of devs are overcompensated for a job that leaves them with quite a bit of free time during the day, or with a lot of overhead spent in ceremonies and design meetings that aren’t really necessary.
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They’re not over compensated since do business makes more from them than their compensation. But they are highly compensated compared to many fields yes
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No, I do mean overcompensated. I’m unemployed right now, and the salary ranges I see in descriptions for senior-level positions are absurd. I don’t think anyone needs to make more than $200k a year, whether they’re a CEO or writing code.
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Sure, I don’t think anyone needs to make over $50k a year. But that doesn’t mean they’re overcompensated. I had a coworker once who through one month of work netted the company over a million a year forever. He was woefully undercompensated relative to his value to the company at 200k
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It sounds like you’re looking at FAANG type businesses in the US. In Europe at least I haven’t seen such outrageous salaries.
Maybe those salaries are normal in the bay area because of the equally outrageous housing prices there?
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Some are what you describe, others are established, private non-big-tech corporations. A lot of banks and other fintech places.
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There are a lot of pre-profit pre-IPO companies in USA paying remote workers over 200k for seniors, so it’s not just FAANG
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