AI isn’t just coming for entry-level workers. Google CEO Sundar Pichai says no job, not even his own, is safe. But those who don’t adapt will be the first to fall.
People are saying no but I think it actually is starting to take jobs.
I’m a software engineer and my company is forcing us all to use AI to write code and we basically just review it at this point and test it then fix any issues.
About a year or two ago there was this big change. They said we are “shifting left”. A hot new trend in the tech industry where we eliminate quality assurance teams and instead the engineers test their own code. At the time it seemed odd. Why would I test my own code that I already tested? It seems the shift was to lay off those people so the engineers could take over the testing jobs when theirs are automated away.
Now they are starting to question all the managers who don’t write code or use AI tools. They have noticed the managers are redundant now too so I don’t think they have much time. My manager is vibe coding like crazy.
We also have product managers who are vibe coding now too. Everyone is just trying to hold on to their livelihood as long as they can. It’s like battle Royale of who can justify staying on to manage AI agents.
It’s insane.
And I know people will say that the code isn’t good enough but I assure you it is. Because it’s all based on our existing code base that was very well written and has high test coverage requirements. It’s very good at following well defined patterns. They just pump a ton of money into it and give it more context.
About a year or two ago there was this big change. They said we are “shifting left”. A hot new trend in the tech industry where we eliminate quality assurance teams and instead the engineers test their own code.
Yeah, that is absolutely not what Shift-left is. Shift-left is essentially an implementation of TDD, and QA is still a vital component of that. I think you are right in that management used it as a scapegoat to fire people.
However, if what you are saying in the rest of your post is accurate, you need to GTFO that company, fast. It’s only going to be a matter of time before the product craters from all the vibe-coding.
I have golden handcuffs for now but it’s a very large company with lots of products so my plan is to stay as long as I can while keeping my resume up to date. Also experimenting with some business ideas.
Ideally I can do my own thing one day without all this nonsense.
My jobs is fairly low level administration, and I have point blank refused to use the AI tools they are trying to force on us. My reasoning to management is that I’ve never needed it before. My reasoning to my colleagues is that I’m not fucking training it to replace me.
My approach at my last company was to loudly call BS, and I got let go (don’t know how tightly correlated those were but I wasn’t making management more friendly to me).
My current company is tracking which people/teams use AI “but not to evaluate anyone.” Now I’m getting praise for staying on the bleeding edge of the tooling but also trying to very clearly describe where the LLM retry loop solved some config error and where I had to delete half of its unnecessary code.
I remember reading a report earlier this year which said that most people who used AI at work found that they didn’t have much use for it and it didn’t make them more productive. So that tracks.
Makes sense that tech CEOs are still pushing it as the miracle tech which will make humans obsolete, though.
Is it actually wiping jobs?
People are saying no but I think it actually is starting to take jobs.
I’m a software engineer and my company is forcing us all to use AI to write code and we basically just review it at this point and test it then fix any issues.
About a year or two ago there was this big change. They said we are “shifting left”. A hot new trend in the tech industry where we eliminate quality assurance teams and instead the engineers test their own code. At the time it seemed odd. Why would I test my own code that I already tested? It seems the shift was to lay off those people so the engineers could take over the testing jobs when theirs are automated away.
Now they are starting to question all the managers who don’t write code or use AI tools. They have noticed the managers are redundant now too so I don’t think they have much time. My manager is vibe coding like crazy.
We also have product managers who are vibe coding now too. Everyone is just trying to hold on to their livelihood as long as they can. It’s like battle Royale of who can justify staying on to manage AI agents.
It’s insane.
And I know people will say that the code isn’t good enough but I assure you it is. Because it’s all based on our existing code base that was very well written and has high test coverage requirements. It’s very good at following well defined patterns. They just pump a ton of money into it and give it more context.
Yeah, that is absolutely not what Shift-left is. Shift-left is essentially an implementation of TDD, and QA is still a vital component of that. I think you are right in that management used it as a scapegoat to fire people.
However, if what you are saying in the rest of your post is accurate, you need to GTFO that company, fast. It’s only going to be a matter of time before the product craters from all the vibe-coding.
I have golden handcuffs for now but it’s a very large company with lots of products so my plan is to stay as long as I can while keeping my resume up to date. Also experimenting with some business ideas.
Ideally I can do my own thing one day without all this nonsense.
No and 10 posts up my feed i saw this The Number of People Using AI at Work Is Suddenly Falling
My jobs is fairly low level administration, and I have point blank refused to use the AI tools they are trying to force on us. My reasoning to management is that I’ve never needed it before. My reasoning to my colleagues is that I’m not fucking training it to replace me.
Sincerely: good luck!
My approach at my last company was to loudly call BS, and I got let go (don’t know how tightly correlated those were but I wasn’t making management more friendly to me).
My current company is tracking which people/teams use AI “but not to evaluate anyone.” Now I’m getting praise for staying on the bleeding edge of the tooling but also trying to very clearly describe where the LLM retry loop solved some config error and where I had to delete half of its unnecessary code.
I remember reading a report earlier this year which said that most people who used AI at work found that they didn’t have much use for it and it didn’t make them more productive. So that tracks.
Makes sense that tech CEOs are still pushing it as the miracle tech which will make humans obsolete, though.
Anything to fuck over people.