Careers in IT with AI here
Discussion
Hi all. I’ve ’encouraged’ my son over the years to pursue a career in IT and he’s in 6th form doing Computer Science and Digital IT and at the moment is looking at going to uni next year for CS.
However. AI. What is it doing to the industry? Should I now be encouraging him to reconsider his options for uni? He enjoys the developer side of CS (not so much the theory).
I’m worried he’s heading into a dead end career and it’s going to be my fault for the encouragement over the years. And at 17 I need to guide him (as a typical 17 year old he doesn’t have a clue what he wants).
However. AI. What is it doing to the industry? Should I now be encouraging him to reconsider his options for uni? He enjoys the developer side of CS (not so much the theory).
I’m worried he’s heading into a dead end career and it’s going to be my fault for the encouragement over the years. And at 17 I need to guide him (as a typical 17 year old he doesn’t have a clue what he wants).
I'd be afraid.
I saw a graph (on LinkedIn initially) that showed the new hire rate by age in the last few years, - It showed that experienced devs are still being hired at a similar rate to a few years ago, but that the junior (i.e. grad to 3 yrs experience) new hires has basically fallen off a cliff.
The claim made in the post was that this was because a senior dev could get the job done using AI in place of the junior devs that would have done much of the handle turning of a few years' ago. Therefore companies are better off (at the moment) hiring 1 more expensive person and leveraging them with AI / not hiring any junior devs. (That may of course change).
It was this one - https://www.reddit.com/r/embedded/comments/1n26jx9... and it wasn't even new hires, it claims to be headcount!
In my company, we are doing the opposite - i.e. we are still hiring smart grads and embracing AI, but I think we might be the outlier based on the above.
That said, I'm not sure what I'd do about it - it's not like Law, or Accountancy, or Marketing etc is going to fare any better imho....
I saw a graph (on LinkedIn initially) that showed the new hire rate by age in the last few years, - It showed that experienced devs are still being hired at a similar rate to a few years ago, but that the junior (i.e. grad to 3 yrs experience) new hires has basically fallen off a cliff.
The claim made in the post was that this was because a senior dev could get the job done using AI in place of the junior devs that would have done much of the handle turning of a few years' ago. Therefore companies are better off (at the moment) hiring 1 more expensive person and leveraging them with AI / not hiring any junior devs. (That may of course change).
It was this one - https://www.reddit.com/r/embedded/comments/1n26jx9... and it wasn't even new hires, it claims to be headcount!
In my company, we are doing the opposite - i.e. we are still hiring smart grads and embracing AI, but I think we might be the outlier based on the above.
That said, I'm not sure what I'd do about it - it's not like Law, or Accountancy, or Marketing etc is going to fare any better imho....
audi321 said:
Hi all. I ve encouraged my son over the years to pursue a career in IT and he s in 6th form doing Computer Science and Digital IT and at the moment is looking at going to uni next year for CS.
However. AI. What is it doing to the industry? Should I now be encouraging him to reconsider his options for uni? He enjoys the developer side of CS (not so much the theory).
I m worried he s heading into a dead end career and it s going to be my fault for the encouragement over the years. And at 17 I need to guide him (as a typical 17 year old he doesn t have a clue what he wants).
IT is an industry and developers are just one part of it. I was a Business Analyst and I can't see how AI will take the job over. It might assist in documenting stuff, but its not going to be holding process design workshops with business users any time soon. Same with Project Management.However. AI. What is it doing to the industry? Should I now be encouraging him to reconsider his options for uni? He enjoys the developer side of CS (not so much the theory).
I m worried he s heading into a dead end career and it s going to be my fault for the encouragement over the years. And at 17 I need to guide him (as a typical 17 year old he doesn t have a clue what he wants).
98elise said:
audi321 said:
Hi all. I ve encouraged my son over the years to pursue a career in IT and he s in 6th form doing Computer Science and Digital IT and at the moment is looking at going to uni next year for CS.
However. AI. What is it doing to the industry? Should I now be encouraging him to reconsider his options for uni? He enjoys the developer side of CS (not so much the theory).
I m worried he s heading into a dead end career and it s going to be my fault for the encouragement over the years. And at 17 I need to guide him (as a typical 17 year old he doesn t have a clue what he wants).
IT is an industry and developers are just one part of it. I was a Business Analyst and I can't see how AI will take the job over. It might assist in documenting stuff, but its not going to be holding process design workshops with business users any time soon. Same with Project Management.However. AI. What is it doing to the industry? Should I now be encouraging him to reconsider his options for uni? He enjoys the developer side of CS (not so much the theory).
I m worried he s heading into a dead end career and it s going to be my fault for the encouragement over the years. And at 17 I need to guide him (as a typical 17 year old he doesn t have a clue what he wants).
What he said, I'm ex Systems Analyst, Business Analyst, Business Consultant....there is no way AI can interrogate and ask reasoned questions of end users.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that AI is just about LLMs, it's not.
It is already writing huge swathes of code in progressive companies and with tools like Windsurf and Cursor, the productivity gains when using AI are factors better than without. It's possible that companies will hire the same number of people and just do more (The Jevons paradox) or it's possible that software engineers will go the way of coal miners, we don't yet know.
The idea that somehow a BA role is "too hard" for AI to do is for the birds. It is almost the perfect role to replace........... I totally understand that many folks don't want to believe that it is coming for their skillset, but it is and in nearly all cases (and perhaps demonstrated in that graph below), it is already having a significant impact on roles today.
In my direct experience, we have hired half as many engineers as we were planning on hiring due to the efficiency gains of embracing AI.
It is already writing huge swathes of code in progressive companies and with tools like Windsurf and Cursor, the productivity gains when using AI are factors better than without. It's possible that companies will hire the same number of people and just do more (The Jevons paradox) or it's possible that software engineers will go the way of coal miners, we don't yet know.
The idea that somehow a BA role is "too hard" for AI to do is for the birds. It is almost the perfect role to replace........... I totally understand that many folks don't want to believe that it is coming for their skillset, but it is and in nearly all cases (and perhaps demonstrated in that graph below), it is already having a significant impact on roles today.
In my direct experience, we have hired half as many engineers as we were planning on hiring due to the efficiency gains of embracing AI.
My bet is that the amount of software driven businesses will increase and there'll be increased demand for IT and software engineers.
Of course there will be lots of redundancies but I think the net picture is growth.
Computers are for more than 'Word and Excel', and so it will be with AI. Most sceptics can't see the 'help me write this email' task.
Of course there will be lots of redundancies but I think the net picture is growth.
Computers are for more than 'Word and Excel', and so it will be with AI. Most sceptics can't see the 'help me write this email' task.
fat80b said:
I'd be afraid.
I saw a graph (on LinkedIn initially) that showed the new hire rate by age in the last few years, - It showed that experienced devs are still being hired at a similar rate to a few years ago, but that the junior (i.e. grad to 3 yrs experience) new hires has basically fallen off a cliff.
The claim made in the post was that this was because a senior dev could get the job done using AI in place of the junior devs that would have done much of the handle turning of a few years' ago. Therefore companies are better off (at the moment) hiring 1 more expensive person and leveraging them with AI / not hiring any junior devs. (That may of course change).
It was this one - https://www.reddit.com/r/embedded/comments/1n26jx9... and it wasn't even new hires, it claims to be headcount!
In my company, we are doing the opposite - i.e. we are still hiring smart grads and embracing AI, but I think we might be the outlier based on the above.
That said, I'm not sure what I'd do about it - it's not like Law, or Accountancy, or Marketing etc is going to fare any better imho....
This is an insightful chart but the impact is somewhat magnified by the reduction of student visas, H1B visas and international students in a number of developed markets, like the US. I saw a graph (on LinkedIn initially) that showed the new hire rate by age in the last few years, - It showed that experienced devs are still being hired at a similar rate to a few years ago, but that the junior (i.e. grad to 3 yrs experience) new hires has basically fallen off a cliff.
The claim made in the post was that this was because a senior dev could get the job done using AI in place of the junior devs that would have done much of the handle turning of a few years' ago. Therefore companies are better off (at the moment) hiring 1 more expensive person and leveraging them with AI / not hiring any junior devs. (That may of course change).
It was this one - https://www.reddit.com/r/embedded/comments/1n26jx9... and it wasn't even new hires, it claims to be headcount!
In my company, we are doing the opposite - i.e. we are still hiring smart grads and embracing AI, but I think we might be the outlier based on the above.
That said, I'm not sure what I'd do about it - it's not like Law, or Accountancy, or Marketing etc is going to fare any better imho....
I think it is important that students study a subject they are naturally interested in & curious about. I have friends that are lawyers and accountants and a lot of them didn't do degrees in the areas they ended up in; they instead got post graduate qualifications.
The company I work for has embraced AI but more in terms of developing tools to utilise it in their software, which customers are absolutely crying out for. There’s a short to medium term gain in that regard, and bring early in the game with a suite of AI tools in your software (which we were) puts you in a good position.
My IT job involves attending sites, deploying, training, troubleshooting, some project management, and building solid long term relationships with clients. AI can assist with that but it certainly can’t do all of it itself.
Software development is a different matter, but for us, we need developers with a vision and AI doesn’t have that either. It’s a while since we’ve needed to hire any new developers but I can’t see that we wouldn’t if the need arose, and the company is keen on supporting and mentoring young people (which is how I got my foot in the door at 18).
The people that make me smile (none of these where I work thankfully) are office staff who smugly tell you how little actual work they now do thanks to using AI tools. Yeah, and I wonder what happens to your job when your boss cottons on!
Scott
My IT job involves attending sites, deploying, training, troubleshooting, some project management, and building solid long term relationships with clients. AI can assist with that but it certainly can’t do all of it itself.
Software development is a different matter, but for us, we need developers with a vision and AI doesn’t have that either. It’s a while since we’ve needed to hire any new developers but I can’t see that we wouldn’t if the need arose, and the company is keen on supporting and mentoring young people (which is how I got my foot in the door at 18).
The people that make me smile (none of these where I work thankfully) are office staff who smugly tell you how little actual work they now do thanks to using AI tools. Yeah, and I wonder what happens to your job when your boss cottons on!
Scott
lancslad58 said:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What he said, I'm ex Systems Analyst, Business Analyst, Business Consultant....there is no way AI can interrogate and ask reasoned questions of end users.
It would be interesting for you to go onto Grok, and ask it a real world example.What he said, I'm ex Systems Analyst, Business Analyst, Business Consultant....there is no way AI can interrogate and ask reasoned questions of end users.
E.g. I'm a business analyst, I want to achieve "X Y Z", what should I ask the end users?
See what it comes back with. Probably some nonsense, some interesting stuff.
Now imagine that instead of a completely generic model that's been trained on all sorts of rubbish, it's been exclusively trained on high quality successful business analyst reports, transcripts of real world meetings, highly regarded books, university lectures...
Getting ai to do what you want is a bit of an art, you also need to know enough to be able to spot when it's going awry and writing robust code that can cope with edge cases is complex.
Then there's supporting the slop that it churns out.
Look at vibe coding, use it to do the donkey work and hand code the more intricate parts.
Then there's supporting the slop that it churns out.
Look at vibe coding, use it to do the donkey work and hand code the more intricate parts.
People believe all sorts of stupid things about AI, some people hallucinate stuff it can do almost as readily as some of the LLMs. They see what they want to see and there are plenty of people encouraging their beliefs.
Not that AI isn't useful for plenty of things but while it can work as a bit of a multiplier or deskiller for some roles, when it comes to IT/software stuff beyond some grunt tasks I have to look at it like this; it might be able to replace a junior doing the noddy stuff, but the AI, unlike a junior, is never going to improve beyond that regardless of the time & money I spend on it.
I can get AI to do (for example) all sorts of coding things but I'll be trapped forever holding its hand, looking over its shoulder, and leaving it to carry the boring stuff. It's just dead effort, while at least a junior will improve with time & training to take on other stuff.
Maybe the models will improve too but there's not too much sign of that right now, it's more about incremental gains & operating cost reduction than better outputs.
Not that AI isn't useful for plenty of things but while it can work as a bit of a multiplier or deskiller for some roles, when it comes to IT/software stuff beyond some grunt tasks I have to look at it like this; it might be able to replace a junior doing the noddy stuff, but the AI, unlike a junior, is never going to improve beyond that regardless of the time & money I spend on it.
I can get AI to do (for example) all sorts of coding things but I'll be trapped forever holding its hand, looking over its shoulder, and leaving it to carry the boring stuff. It's just dead effort, while at least a junior will improve with time & training to take on other stuff.
Maybe the models will improve too but there's not too much sign of that right now, it's more about incremental gains & operating cost reduction than better outputs.
.:ian:. said:
Look at vibe coding, use it to do the donkey work and hand code the more intricate parts.
AKA winging/faking it to produce an MVP/ POC and praying all the time that no-one looks behind the curtain to see the pile of s
t/smoke/mirrors holding the whole teetering mess up. Worst I've seen for that have been AI based products - those guys might know maths but they don't know code or engineering.
Not that the principle is entirely wrong but it's backwards - first you engineer the hard bits then you use the AI to fill in the boilerplate once it has structure & key details to hang off and provide enough context.
There's plenty of scope in the IT & Computing fields that you wouldn't want to touch with AI, at least not for the foreseeable future - And even then, it will want human handholding.
Software development as a direct in never really appealed to me, but picking up that basic awareness of logic, scripting and programming combined with strong networking & operational fundamentals can set you up very well.
Software development as a direct in never really appealed to me, but picking up that basic awareness of logic, scripting and programming combined with strong networking & operational fundamentals can set you up very well.
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