Thanks for this post Gordon! I was about to Google something similar but realised that if I would find a decent post about this anywhere it would be here.
I am learning to build apps with LLM assistants, having never built software before. I’m wondering to myself if it is the right direction to go with my career. Given how easy it is, it no longer seems like a secure job.
On the whole, i don’t things these worries are well founded. Firstly, reminded of the Jevons Paradox, software has suddenly become a lot cheaper to build which means we will build lots more of it. Lower value features for big organisations are now above a threshold that make them worth building, and organisations that couldn’t afford to build software before suddenly can. Secondly, these organisations still need technical people to manage and oversee these systems and the LLMs that are building these systems. Whilst LLMs might be able to build software logic easily, they are a long way off from dealing with the messiness that comes with real world systems. Shipping 2⁄3 x more product means 2/3x more mess.
Sorry, i’ve gone on a bit of a tangent more relevant to my problem than yours! Back to your question of whether wages will increase. I think you are right. I can’t see wages going up 2/3x to match productivity. However, i’d also add that productivity increases in tech much faster than other industries. Programmers are seeing higher wages, but productivity has probably grown probably 60x or more compared to the 6x of other industries. So from that perspective programmers are getting just as bad a deal as everyone else!
Thanks for this post Gordon! I was about to Google something similar but realised that if I would find a decent post about this anywhere it would be here.
I am learning to build apps with LLM assistants, having never built software before. I’m wondering to myself if it is the right direction to go with my career. Given how easy it is, it no longer seems like a secure job.
On the whole, i don’t things these worries are well founded. Firstly, reminded of the Jevons Paradox, software has suddenly become a lot cheaper to build which means we will build lots more of it. Lower value features for big organisations are now above a threshold that make them worth building, and organisations that couldn’t afford to build software before suddenly can. Secondly, these organisations still need technical people to manage and oversee these systems and the LLMs that are building these systems. Whilst LLMs might be able to build software logic easily, they are a long way off from dealing with the messiness that comes with real world systems. Shipping 2⁄3 x more product means 2/3x more mess.
Sorry, i’ve gone on a bit of a tangent more relevant to my problem than yours! Back to your question of whether wages will increase. I think you are right. I can’t see wages going up 2/3x to match productivity. However, i’d also add that productivity increases in tech much faster than other industries. Programmers are seeing higher wages, but productivity has probably grown probably 60x or more compared to the 6x of other industries. So from that perspective programmers are getting just as bad a deal as everyone else!