Do companies NEED software engineers? Let's talk Devin, Layoffs, AI Coding Assistants.

fear power control let's talk about staying relevant in the age of tech layoffs llms and AI software Engineers like Devon we've all seen it it's becoming more real every day the idea the possibility that a role like software engineering can be automated by a series of AI agents so right away I just want to share all the secrets everything we're going to be discussing in this video I'm going to give it all away right now so what are the Big Ideas to staying relevant in the age of AI software engineers in this video we're going to talk about these three big ideas to a company your an asset and your liability do you know your a to L ratio do you know your asset to liability ratio this is going to change how you think about your work how you think about your place in your company you want to make sure you're an asset way more than your liability to your company we're going to dig into this idea more in this video your tools and your relevant experience Define how much power you have as an asset to a company and therefore it defines your career so you have to ask yourself is your engineering tool set evolving we're going to talk about what it means to really evolve your engineering tool set and then we're going to double click into what it really means to be a more productive engineer at the end of the day it's really all about our tools and our relevant experience last B idea to control your career you need to dig into your fear of ai's potential understand the potential of the AI tooling the AI coding assistants so that you can wield them so you can take control of them so that you can use them to benefit your career to progress your products to progress your ideas these are the Big Ideas we're going to cover let's start with an uncomfortable question that is critical to staying relevant in the age of AI do companies need software Engineers let's break this down understanding the intricacies of this simple question can really dictate your career in the age of AI let me explain how so a great company roughly speaking cares about two things their user's perception and their profit right I think we can generally agree on that every person in a company consumes resources AKA capital and generates value for their users which in return generates capital for the business right this creates a cycle that can be diagrammed like this you have Engineers that build for users users Drive profits and profits fund Engineers this is the Cornerstone simplified model of every software business this is what it's all about keep this diagram in your mind as we progress here so let's answer the question right do companies need software Engineers absolutely it's a big blanket yes software businesses need Engineers like you and I to drive product growth to satisfy users which then generates Revenue Engineers have been and are the critical asset of software businesses and now the question that's really on everyone's mind is but for how long with AI coding assistants with tools like Devon Microsoft just dropped their Auto Dev paper with these tools coming out the real question we we're really wondering is for how long let's talk about the kings of knowledge work software Engineers for the past 20 years have been one of the highest paid knowledge workers to ever exist knowing how to write code gave you the ability to progress your career and raise your social economic status to one of the highest in the world right on average we Engineers really have been the kings of knowledge work knowledge data information the way to control transfer and create data is to hire an engineer that is what we are in the most fundamental form Engineers are the best manipulators of data big tech companies like Google have to find systems around attracting the best engineers in the world you know this other companies have jumped on this bandwagon there's been a push against this a little bit in the last couple years and you and I both know why that's what we're getting to right now right this has kind of been the standard right do whatever it costs do whatever it takes to attract the best talent because they are a massive unit of value creation Engineers are just a huge unit of value creation for any business and creating value means satisfying users which means generating revenue and capital for the business but now the Kings have a challenger us Engineers we really have been the kings of knowledge work but that is changing you know exactly why if you know where this is going and if you're enjoying this so far and really understanding it hit the like hit the sub and let's talk about the Challenger that interestingly we ourselves have created AI llm coding assistants and now fullon ai software engineers in order to understand where things are headed you you have to follow the money and you have to follow the technology you have to get into the entrepreneur the VC and the Investor's mindset right so they're all looking at new AI technology and asking themselves as any great investor and entrepreneur should they're running this this this conversation in their head we have this asset in our company that generates massive value but is also expensive and of course here I'm talking about software Engineers the kings of knowledge work and they're asking themselves do we still need software Engineers they cost the most and they give the most if we can replace them we'll be left with a lowcost unit of massive value creation because that is what we do as Engineers we generate massive massive value by creating digital assets that can be sold and resold at virtually no cost right this is the only equation you really need to know to control and accelerate your career if you understand this conversation if you understand how company owners think how entrepreneurs think how VCS think how investors are thinking and how they're thinking about you know not at at a personal level at all just at a truly functional you know um $1 and $10 out type of framework right where your business is a function of value creation you need to input units of Labor you need to input Engineers you need to input ideas and problems and solution and outcomes value for users and the revenue and profits that come with solving a problem right it's really as simple as that so if you understand this conversation do we still need software Engineers they cost the most but they also give the most if we can replace them will be left with a lowcost unit of massive value creation this is where everything is going follow the money follow the technology and you'll be able to answer many many many questions so let's talk about the new Kings of knowledge work cuz it's not exactly what you think at least not yet so who are the new Kings who are the new Kings of knowledge work your tools and your relevant experience Define how much power you have as a productive unit in a business AKA how much of an asset you are and therefore it defines your career it defines your career growth it defines your career trajectory so the only real thing you should be asking yourself is is your tool set evolved and do you have relevant experience software Engineers that look into the fear and excitement of what they can do what they can build what they can become with AI power tools will be the new Kings it's not going to be a jump an instant flash to all of a sudden and everyone's using Devon to build everything right that's not how software works it's not how Evolution works that's not how you know Industries progress It's one step at a time sometimes it feels like a big step sometimes it feels like rapid steps but the next most important step is AI powered Engineers AI charged Engineers Engineers that use Devon Engineers that use ader Engineers that use cursor and whatever is coming next those people we are the new Kings of knowledge work it's the agentic engineer it's the AI powered engineer that will be and to be totally honest and Frank are already the most valuable unit of a software business aka the most valuable asset with the best asset to liability ratio the a to L ratio is really important because you have to pay everyone right you need to pay everyone's salary there's cost of goods there's cost of human labor up until the point when there's not right and then everything goes out the window but that time isn't here and contrary to popular belief I don't think it's going to be here for at least another five plus years so there's this golden age for agentic engineers and AI powered Engineers which is exactly what we focus on on this channel a ton it's all about finding the best tool for the job right now the best tool is llm power tools coding assistance powerful wrappers around fast models accurate models Discovery llm benchmarking constructing great prompts and orchestrating all of these things put together right the llm the tool the code The Prompt orchestrating the system that drives the next waves of value simple framework to really stick to evolve Thrive die right a thing isn't beautiful because it lasts forever our careers have expiration dates this is a fact of life let's just accept that right accept this and bring your attention to more important impactful actionable questions like how can I evolve to extend my expiration date that's a much better question than am I going to lose my job right don't focus on that you can't control that what you can control is am I putting my best foot forward am I learning the right tools do I have the right information Channel set up am I following the right people am I following the right crowd do I understand where technolog is going do I understand what my edges are am I using the right AI tools right focus on what matters focus on the things you can change right how can I become the most most powerful unit of productivity in the age of AI and llms and AI coding assistance and don't get me wrong I'm not a grind set you know grind till you die 16 hours a day type of guy when you're in you're in when you're out you're out I don't want you to waste your life working more than you need to but you know when you're on and when you're building and when you're engineering I want you to win and I want you to win fast and as an engineer there's only two real ways to do that find better tools and get more relevant experience the relevant part is very important the name of the game in software engineering is evolve Thrive die it always has been it's just accelerating with AI tooling new tools and skills increase in demand While others will fade I can guarantee you in job interviews and job postings the best companies are going to know and understand that this signal is here and you're going to start looking and asking for what coding assistance do you use right it's all about that next level it's all about that evolution of your tool set this is the next step for engineers so you know the new interview question the new set of things it's going to be less about you know code bubble sort write this sorting algorithm write this data structure you know tweak this modify that like this on hands typing every character you know lower level for no reason type question is going to disappear and the new interview questions are going to be things like this right prompt bubble sore prompt that backend service right prompt this UI component prompt this you know this library of existing UI components right design the system right good now that you design the system shows how you would prompt the the SMS service right and wire it to the database layer right these are more realistic day-to-day level AI powered engineer type tasks that are useful to solve right you want to think of yourself moving up the abstraction layer right think more like a product manager and a ux designer instruct the system talk to your computer faster with prompts right evolve your tool set our fear is a signal of threat some of these signals are real most of them are not I think that this is a very real fear and a very real signal and that's okay okay the fear of AI and the fear of coding assistants and the fear of AI software Engineers replacing us and threatening our ability to you know provide for ourselves and to provide for our families and to you know create a career if you're just getting started right like what a huge threat you're facing right will I even have work well there'll be work when I get out of college when I finish this boot camp wherever you're at right and if you're already an established engineer how can I maintain this right I I need I have a family to feed or I want to start a family whatever your case is whatever situation you're in right let this fear be a signal to you to evolve and nothing else that's all it is this is your signal you know when Devon comes out and you're like oh wow like that's wild it truly is amazing even if they only hitting 13% of cases on this software engineering Benchmark 133% is a great start right it's beating claw 2 it's beating everything else by you know some almost 10% right all GD Engineers know there's always another version coming right so when you see things like this let fear be your power right to take control over what's happening fear is a signal to evolve and nothing else so let's talk about the Big Ideas let's recap them they're really important think like a company think like a business owner to a company every hire every engineer is an asset and a liability they pay you and they're hoping that that payment pays off with you generating useful product for your users you want to be understanding your asset to liability ratio you want to be more of an asset you want to be less of a liability I'm not saying take a pay cut you should be paid as much as you're worth and more if you can negotiate it what I am saying is make sure that you're are an asset right if you're a massive asset to the company they're going to throw money at you as long as you can negotiate it so maximize your a to L ratio how use the best tool for the job and keep learning and again in the age of AI your tools and your relevant experience Define how much power you have as an asset to a company and therefore defines your career so always just constantly be asking yourself is your tool set evolving are you learning and the tools you need to be learning right now are very clearly AI coding assistance it's very clearly llm technology it's very clearly prompt engineering it's very clearly some of these tools that are very intimidating and you're like wow that looks like that could be the thing that you know replaces me down the line and that might be true again I want to focus on this idea we're in this goldilux Zone where if you're learning you're staying sharp you have the right information channels of course I recommend my own channel on bias we really deep dive here and we look at concrete examples of how you can utilize these tools and it's been so incredible you know one of the founding open AI Engineers has directly tweeted one one of our videos on a really really on topic conversation right automating software engineering where he dives into moving up the stack just like we've been talking about on the channel you want to move up to higher levels of abstraction there's going to be a progression of the AI doing more and the human doing less while providing oversight and just like we have truly experienced on the channel and you can literally playback the videos and watch this Evolution happen right first we were just writing code then we using get up co-pilot then we used chat gbt started using and creating some really cool and efficient prompts then we moved to larger and larger code diffs using tools like cursor and AER and most recently cursor's cop Plus+ and really incredibly he literally links to one of the videos on the channel he links to something that we've been working on something we've been talking about cursor scopy Plus+ so incredible and such an honor to have such a legendary engineer literally tweet and reference one of the videos on the channel and then of course what follows is the discussion about Devon and he's got Devon linked here right so there's a lot of excitement but it's all about evolving your tool set right as Engineers with our boots on the ground it's all about the concrete steps we can take and the things that we can continue to learn to push our advantage to push our Edge let your fear of being replaced by AI guide you to the best tool it's such a real kind of human thing to to just be afraid of what's coming next and to not understand how technology will affect our future but let that fear help guide you to control your career you want to be digging into your fear of AI and Powerful AI tools so that you can wield them yourself it's all about taking action fear is not the mind killer fear Within in action is the mind killer so as soon as you feel yourself like oh Devon tool is crazy that's going to change everything forever am I even going to have a job start digging in start learning start researching start using existing co-pilots get yourself started and running with your Edge as a Next Level engineer as the evolution of an engineer the AI charge engineer the agentic engineer on this channel we don't focus on the fear so much I try really hard not to clickbait on things that are coming out and you know say crazy things like all of our jobs are going to be taken right that's not helpful right on the channel we focus on actionable steps concrete tools and technology that we can use to progress our career to progress our products to progress our journey as engineers and our journey as Builders we are going to be here until our machines are a better asset without us and right now that is just simply not the case the human in the loop is still Ultra important and we're a critical step to building and to really holding up the entire industry of software engineering whatever comes next next we're going to be here covering it on the channel cursor AER Devon Auto Dev whatever the next big thing is we're going to be here talking about it breaking it down we'll be discussing the macro and micro perspective of all these new tools and I'm going to be sharing you know what I am using on a day-to-day basis right and I can tell you right now when I sit down to write code I'm never building anything without an AI coding assistant the game has changed we need to change with it cursor AER Devon autod Dev whatever it's called whatever shape or form it takes we'll be covering it here on on the channel hit the like hit the sub if you want to stay plugged in to these ideas and this perspective I think it's really important to follow and listen to information streams that are action oriented positive leaning more optimistic versus this like pessimistic fear of oh AI coming it's all going to be over soon like that that isn't useful it's not helpful it won't help you accomplish anything so if you enjoy these yourself definitely hit the like hit the sub so the other Engineers can feel this as well stay focused keep building and I'll see you in the next one

Channel: IndyDevDan

Views: 2,589

Keywords: devin, ai software engineer, ai coding assistant, cursor, aider, best ai for coding, github copilot, copilot++, agentic engineer, ai engineer, llm, prompt engineering, prompt orchestration, slidev, job security, layoffs, tech layoffs

Id: 9xX5ztto7s4

Length: 17min 1sec (1021 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 18 2024