The pace differs though. A junior would need a week for a feature an LLM can produce in an hour. And you’re expected to validate that just as quickly. And LLMs are trained to appeal to the reader, unlike an average junior dev. Devs will only get lazy the more they rely on LLMs. It’s like you’re at the university and there’s no homework anymore, just lectures. You’re just passively ingesting data, not getting trained on real problems because you’ve got AI to do that for you. So you’re no longer challenged to grow anymore in your domain. What’s left are hard problems that the AI will mislead you on because it’s unfamiliar with them, and your opportunity to learn was lost to delegating to AI. In the end the pressure will grow at work, more features will be expected in shorter time frames. You’ll get even less time to learn and grow as a developer or engineer.
I hear you. But consider this: substitute “LLM” in what you said above with “coworker” or “direct report”.
Does having a coworker automatically make a person dumb and no longer willing or able to grow? Does an engineer who becomes a manager instantly lose their ability to work or grow or learn? Sometimes, yes I know, but it’s not a foregone conclusion.
Agents are a new tool in our arsenal and we get to choose how we use them and what it will do for us, and what it will do to us, each as individuals.
You can substitute anything like “banana” or “parrot” for that and ask the same question.
Change of roles is a twist I didn’t suggest, it’s not related to my argument. I was talking about an engineering role. I’m not seeing an analogy with what you’re suggesting. Even less so does your suggested “immediately” resonate with me. Such transitions are rarely is immediate. Growth on an alternative career path is a different story.
The problem that I see here is that we’re not given that choice you’re considering. Take for example the recent Shopify pivot. It is now expected by the management because they believe the exaggerated hype, especially motivated during the ongoing financing crunch - in many places. So it’s not a lawnmower we’re talking about here but an oracle one would need to be capable of challenging.
