I just finished a PhD in stats, and before that, studied computer science. I had planned to go back to industry to do software engineering or be a data scientist afterwards.
However, it seems that in the meantime, vibe coding has taken over the software industry and swallowed most data scientist roles. Few open positions, and the ones that do exist are just pushing a button instead of thinking and solving problems. Is this a correct assessment? Should I try to get back in or just find a new career? I am not too keen on staying in academia either.
I think at the point SWE and DS are solved problems, most other white collar jobs are too, then you’ll have huge numbers of applicants for the remaining white collar jobs and blue collar jobs which will drive down the marginal value of those skills. Realistically if you like SWE and are seemingly pretty good at it, keep applying and get a job until the music stops
SWE consists of 2 core aspects: Complexity management and requirements engineering. Both work in layers. At each layer, choices need to be made.
Example: what instruction do you compile an “if” statement to? That is making a choice on how to implement a requirement on a level that we have already automated away. (Unless you are a compiler engineer.)
An AI can handle several of the lower layers with ease. But that just means we can start stacking more layers before human engineers get overwhelmed. AI won’t end software, it will just increase the expectations on how wel integrated it is, how much features is has, how fast bugs get resolved, how well tested code is, etc
It can change the job in ways people don’t like, though. In the same way that a compiler engineer isn’t necessarily going to be happy doing web frontend work in Javascript, somebody who enjoys coding in high-level languages by hand isn’t necessarily going to be happy doing AI-driven development.
Agreed. You have a bit different perspective on it than I do but I was coming to say the same thing. It’s funny when the first comment you read was what you were going to say.
The whole idea really is to drive the value of everyone, well except those that actually run the generative AI systems.
Do you mean this is an unknown point in the future?
Think the point is you can put aside the debate about when and if and just take it that all the likely alternative careers are in the same boat, whatever shape the boat is in. Especially if you’ve already done your education.
You might have more need to think on it if you are, say in high school or very early college. Then you might think on dramatically different paths based on risk or generally perceived risk.
I mean I don’t think they are solved now. In my job AI still needs me for certain aspects, you could probably replace me with someone less skilled potentially but company’s usually pay a premium for reliability etc. Maybe in five years time this isn’t the case I don’t know, but company’s (at least in Europe) will be slow to adapt and I think its quite likely employee protections will be pretty heavily enforced to try and stop all the white collar job money being sent to American tech companies but that’s just my two cents
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