With AI we need more tech skills than ever!
With some bad media about AI taking programmers jobs this is really due to the global economic downturn rather than AI replacing software engineering jobs out right.
Companies are however looking closely at productivity levels and if you’re not using AI companion tools like CoPilot, Claude etc as a developer you might not have a job very soon. I’ve been asking development managers and directors over the past 2 years how much efficiency their teams have been gaining using these tools. the answers have varied from 20-30-40% to some saying 10X.
I keep saying I should make t-shirts saying ‘AI - you gotta know what good looks like’
A recent conversation with a fractional CTO we talked about scaling up a team. previously he would have said yeah you might need 10 devs now it’s more like 3 to scale a new SaaS product for example. But read on for the good news and the jobs in demand…
I’m hearing qualitative evidence that the companion tools are great for getting boiler plates up & running, writing boring stuff like unit tests, good on creating data structures and so on.
Ah but you say AI is being trained to automatically code in products? Yes this is happening but we still need highly skilled people to oversee this, ensure this is being done correctly meeting requirements. I saw a talk by an ex- cloud architect from Netflix a couple of years ago and he talked about the software developer role becoming more like a solutions architect…maybe we’ll call it a ‘solutions developer’ or similar who’s job is more responsible for understanding the technical requirements, ensuring the right tooling is set up and then executing the code with AI and making sure it does what it’s saying it’s gonna do!!!!
But don’t let this scare you as yes AI is a ‘renaissance’ the next ‘revolution’ but we need to move with the times and embrace new tools that give us the edge, like we always have done in tech - use these tools wisely and only if they further our productivity. Does this tool I’m using make the boat go faster?
There are still concerns about hallucinations and privacy. I have been worried about this but when I recently built our new AI chatbot Sunny for the sunstonetalent.com website but I’ve been pleasantly surprised, well actually blown away with the accuracy of the answers it’s been providing. Even when the kids put silly things in like ‘are you a dog’. It answers with humour: ‘Haha no I’m not a dog but I can help you out with IT recruitment services for Christchurch and the South Island of New Zealand’ and it even left a paw print emoji…brilliant….
Check it out here and ask Sunny some questions: https://sunstonetalent.com/aichat-faqs
In a recent article from the Economic forum highlighted the top 5 in demand jobs as:
Agricultural farm workers
Light truck delivery drivers
Software & applications developers
Building framers
Shop sales people
Food processing
Car, van & motorcycle drivers
Nursing
Food & beverage workers
General & operations manager
Social work & counsellors
Project managers
University & higher education teachers
Secondary education teachers
Personal care aides
And the jobs that are going to see most decline:
Cashiers & ticket clerks
Admin and Executive Assistants
Building caretakers, cleaners & housekeepers
Material recording & stock-keeping clerks
printing & related trades
Accounting, book keeping and payroll clerks
Accountants & Auditors
Transportation attendants & conductors
security guards
Bank tellers & related clerks
Data Entry clerks
Client information and customer service workers
Graphic designers
Business services & admin managers
Claims adjusters, examiners & investigators
More info here:
The economic forum continues to explain the top 5 fastest growing jobs by 2030 will be:
Big data specialists
AI and Machine learning Specialists
Fintech Engineers
Software and applications developers
Security Management Specialist
innovative developers & programmers are taking an AI first approach. Can an LLM solve this problem or is standard machine learning better, can I get Claude to write a quick web app to solve this problem. What OpenSource resources do I have ie using hugging face to select a range of different LLM APIs etc.
The whole world is run on software now so they’ll be plenty of jobs for wrangling legacy code, working on complex integrations, refactoring code etc and yes using those shiny new AI tools to assist you in doing this and building new stuff as the fascinating software evolution continues to evolve…
Keep up your technical skills - keep innovating & automating with an AI first approach. And don’t forget the missing piece which is education. As AI makes tech more accessible, tech people will be in demand to help educate people to help them understand what they’re really doing!!!
I’m Paul, lover of coffee, dogs, biking, surfing & skiing. Founder & Principal Consultant of Sunstone, an IT Recruitment & HR company specialising in recruiting IT roles within software, web, digital, mobile, blockchain, AI, machine learning, data, cloud infrastructure, security & networks in Christchurch & South Island of New Zealand.