12 Comments

Thanks for the article, Ryan. Regarding the "start using AI tools part" - what are your favorite/most productive ways to use AI for software engineering?

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For me, standard LLMs (e.g ChatGPT and equivalent) have worked well in general tasks (e.g editing writing, formatting sheets) or helping me generate code where I’m rusty (e.g various SQL). There are many other uses but those are two that come to mind for me

I have friends who swear by more specific coding tools like Cursor and GitHub Copliot. Worth checking those out too

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Mar 15Liked by Ryan Peterman

Thanks Ryan, that is the most objective view of how software engineering will change with the advancement of AI

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Great article, Ryan! I believe that skill stacking is the most future proof approach for a software engineer: Learning complementary, sometimes unrelated skills that allow you to have more leverage. Focus on understanding a domain, the business, know the customer true wants and needs. Exercise reading and writing.

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In other words, as Steve Jobs said, the best employees are those who learn how to manage themselves. Do that and your career will skyrocket. Good article!

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great post. I was thinking how AI like Devin will affect cybersecurity also and is not just restricted to software engineering. We are moving away from prompt exchanges to more autonomous AI and this is going to be a major gear change

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Great article. Humans still have to do the thinking and do big picture work.

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Great post - it does seem like AI's in software engineering will move quite a bit faster than autonomous vehicles have, for several reasons:

1. It's far safer to iterate on AI in software to continue making it better

2. You have far more people working on it

3. AI in software engineering seems to be better positioned for exponential growth...more AI capabilities means faster unlocking of AI capabilities, etc.

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These are valid points. You could also argue that software engineering is more difficult than driving given that less people can do it. No one knows exactly what will happen but I don't think it's a hot take to say it'll be quite some time before software engineering is automated.

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Mar 18Liked by Ryan Peterman

I agree. Writing code is the easy part, after all.

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😌liked it !

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Glad you liked it Jivan, thanks for reading!

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