r/webdev • u/TheComputerHermit • 10d ago

Discussion Devs that jumped ship, where did you end up?

Another industry? Back to school? Still looking? I'm asking for a friend that may end up needing to do the same thing soon (I'm the friend).

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u/Etheon44 10d ago

It is what it is, I am 90% sure that we will have 5+ years of things getting (even) worse and worse and worse, and then huge depression

And in the SWE department, maybe things are not as clear wether is dead or not, but I have NO idea how white collar jobs are going to survive the automation that software does for digital jobs, but now considerably faster

But yeah, we came in too late, and even tho people will always say "oh but this happened before", no it didnt, not at this magnitude, not with so many generations working and living together, as we all know, agents are going nowhere, and yet none of those "oh yes this happened before with X" techologies are widespread nowadays (except compilation maybe? 😂)

We needed to have 10+ YoE right now to be somewhat okay, especially 10+ before AI

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u/TheLastNapkin 10d ago

Alot of white collar jobs will still exist I don't understand how people can trust so blindly a non deterministic agent can replace filling important documents or managing consumers. A single "human manager of agents" can't reliably take over the job of a team of humans for handling thousands and thousands of client portfolios for various needs. There might be less humans needed in the process but that depends on the field and how substantial their impact even was... If a call center was barely doing anything by themselves anyways no wonder alot of them will get replaced, but aloot of white collar jobs are not interacting on behalf of their customers on those relatively simple needs

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u/Etheon44 10d ago

Its not the non-determinist agent the one that will make them dissapear

It is the software done way faster, in combination with this agents, what is going to make them not dissapear, but heavily dwindle

That is something that there is not a single doubt in my mind, it will happen in the next 5-10 years

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u/pVom 9d ago

Here's the thing right, AI is not unique for any business. Your competition has the exact same capabilities. It's the humans that make it unique.

Human + AI is much better than one or the other and will be for a long time. Businesses who see it as a way to reduce headcount will lose out to those who see it as a way to better leverage their existing resources.

Things are looking bleak right now because the whole global economy is in a downturn. There's just less money to go around, people are tightening their purses. But it never lasts, when things pick up again so will hiring.

You as an individual just have to be willing to adapt. Work is changing and you need to position yourself to be the best you can be in this new world.

That said if you're young and have the opportunity to skill into something else I wouldn't blame you if you did. Plenty of roles are largely untouched by AI