I've worked on very complex systems - The disney streaming platform (before it was disney), live video streaming systems, banking transaction systems, your run of the mill crud software with kafka clusters piping mind numbing amounts of data, netflix and a few other large engineering heavy companies.
No engineering company worth their weight is going to build a world class technology business purely with generative AI in its current state. The risk in doing so currently is total and utter failure. I have a very hard time believing we're any where near that capability. Maybe your mom and pop startup could hire a prompt engineer to build a website and simple tool but we have yet to see those exercises surfaced to the mainstream; it's purely speculative.
I say, rest easy programmers. Your careers will be enriched more than axed with generative AI as a support tool for many years to come.
Also, if anyone who works in this field has a strong opposing belief, then consider OpenAI engineers are programming themselves out of a job which obviously is not the case.
I'm one who lives in the east bay (oakland/emeryville area) and don't use BART anymore because I'm WFH now.
I also choose to drive into the city on weekends and off commute hours because the BART always has sketchy people, homeless, some weirdo moving up and down the carts and there's never enough people in the off hours to make it feel safe and worth it.
It's a bummer because I'm down the street from Macarthur and would love to take it more often but I always have to be on guard which is not the travel experience I need in my life right now.
This is cool but in the last 12 years I have never written a cover letter for a role or read one as a part of the hiring process. Maybe other markets outside of tech still use them or for entry roles.
Every couple of years I apply for jobs and only recently I noticed there is a field to upload/write such a cover letter. If it was always there I never acknowledged it. And thank you for confirming no one would read it anway which was my first reaction to noticing it.
Who comes up with this stuff? I can only imagine the conversations in HR: "Cover letters. That's it! Now we only get applications from people who are involved. The ones we're looking for. Amazing!"
Great point for a deeper discussion. When it comes to deciding when to move fast & when to think more carefully, the answer to this question feels very nuanced and problem domain specific than the aphorism suggests.
More action has led to painfully bad engineering decisions in some working startups i've joined that leads to attrition & perhaps years of refactoring. Sure, the argument could be made, "well that's the learning!" you moved fast and realized it wouldn't scale. And in some cases, you're right and in other cases you wished you hired someone better for the job.
Perhaps, then, to minimize the pain of the future, the less talk more action mentality only works with better engineers who make better decisions. I don't have any data to back up this claim but it sure feels like better engineers who are successful are better at making fewer mistakes when wanting to move fast.
I really enjoy reading about folks sharing their OCD stories. This one resonated with me because it's one of my obsessions.
I will say that after going through CBT and becoming an amature expert on OCD as a sufferer, a therapist would argue that this behavior of checking your photo is a form of compulsion. It works for dam sure but you're never really going to be able to go to sleep without some form of checking when the obsessive thoughts start.
Anyone who has gone through treatment knows the ultimate goal is to weaken the reaction of the obsessive thoughts which is what exposure therapy is all about.
Just a quick story, my laddering technique for achieving peace was to eventually get to a comfort level where I can sleep with the door wide open all night. Well, I didn't get that far but I did sleep with all my doors unlocked for a couple nights.
Lastly, I can safely say that I now check all my doors once these days with the exception when I'm stressed at work. I'll check them once before going to bed and if I brush my teeth between checking the door and actually walking to bed, I might check them once more. But this is a seldom occurrence these days.
Stock splits can also be used for companies with values too low (A reverse split) . These companies split to increase the value of stocks in order to prevent delisting from exchanges.
No engineering company worth their weight is going to build a world class technology business purely with generative AI in its current state. The risk in doing so currently is total and utter failure. I have a very hard time believing we're any where near that capability. Maybe your mom and pop startup could hire a prompt engineer to build a website and simple tool but we have yet to see those exercises surfaced to the mainstream; it's purely speculative.
I say, rest easy programmers. Your careers will be enriched more than axed with generative AI as a support tool for many years to come.
Also, if anyone who works in this field has a strong opposing belief, then consider OpenAI engineers are programming themselves out of a job which obviously is not the case.