[beoberha]

I don’t think there’s going to be much change if any in the next 5 years. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills when I see people say LLMs can replace software engineers. Maybe if you’re writing basic CRUD web apps, but most systems have enough complexity that an LLM cannot currently ascertain. Not to say they’re not helpful - ChatGPT is jawdroppingly good at pointing out bugs in code. They’re going to make people more productive but not enough to impact the labor market and remove the need for junior engineers.

People aren’t hiring juniors right now because of the hiring freezes that are only beginning to thaw. Teams are understaffed after having to do more with less and need to hire people who can hit the ground running. The headcount for juniors will come.

[happymellon]

I completely agree with this take.

LLM's have been hyped up to replace developers, but have repeatedly shown that the code at best can do the job.

It will replace the offshore sweatshops that Accenture and IBM have made, where they literally pull people off the streets and give them a couple of hours course so they can meet headcount for contracts. Those people were never productive.

I've seen the outputs that people who have tried to use in my codebase, and the amount of SQL injections and XSS exploits that get churned out because the model doesn't understand context is terrible.

I'm just waiting for the big hack to come along because of too much faith in these systems that have cold indifference in your systems reliability.

[austin-cheney]

> Maybe if you’re writing basic CRUD web apps,

Isn’t that half or more of employed software developers? The complexity that you speak of are poorly refined business requirements or unnecessary abstractions, which are communications problems not a technology problem. Nearly all of those CRUD app developers are replaceable right now, which is striking considering the current immaturity of AI.

[wwkeyboard]

You might be underestimating how quickly a basic CRUD web app turns into a very complicated CRUD web app. I don't see AI code tools slowing this down.

[gautambay]

Thanks for the perspective. Any predictions on how long before junior roles open up again / what are you seeing at your employer?

[emestifs]

If I had to guess, it'll be spring/summer 2025 until hiring freezes fully go away and non-senior role open up. Maybe start of 2025. These may be conservative estimates. More optimistic guesses would be fall 2024.

I say this because Interest Rates will be most likely lower than what they're at right now, which will cause money to flow into companies through VC and public investment.

Just a guess though, could easily be wrong. Keep an eye on startup investment and public ipo activity as a potential indicator of things.