I’ve started writing at least three articles on various AI-related topics but frankly, things are moving so fast that I can’t even manage to mentally process one whole thing before realizing that there’s something more urgent to talk about now … But anyway …
At this point I believe we are all aware that there is a massive change happening. Fancy term being “AI Transformation” but I’m not sure that’s legit given that we haven’t even managed to finish the “Digital Transformation” yet. How many companies are still using pen & paper? Or, if they are high-tech, Excel? Yes, a lot I guess. But whether we like it or not, the thing is happening.
Major problem, from my point of view at least, is that there’s a massive amount of hype mixing with useful stuff, to the point that you can’t even get to the useful stuff due to amount of bullshit being thrown around which serves no other purpose than making people run away from anything-AI-related as if it’s a burning daemon with a massive ding-dong chasing them and threatening to go medieval on their dreams & plans. This just leads to people saying “this is all hype, let’s settle back and wait for the bubble to pop” and other crap like that. I disagree. Well, some months ago I WOULD agree, but I do realize now that I was part of the crowd that was just running away from that burning daemon (with a huge ding-dong, yes; relevant peace of information right there). Daemon caused by tons and tons of bullshit which is, to make matters even worse, most likely generated by the AI itself. Anyway, my point being – yes, there’s shitload of hype, but that doesn’t mean that these things aren’t useful. Because THEY ARE. And they WILL change a lot of stuff whether we like it or not. The hype might pop, but unless some major event occurs I simpy don’t see a reason why would something that can be REALLY USEFUL go away? I mean, really, why? So, let’s just assume it will stay.
I’ve been going through my own stages of grief, rethinking everything and anything, pondering what the future holds and what the hell is a place for a person whose major skills are programing, (bad) writing and trying to explain complex stuff through Infographics. And frankly – I have no idea, and I’ve just accepted that at the end of the day, who the heck knows what tomorrow brings? No one I guess.
Now, all that thinking would be for nothing if I didn’t share my own predictions for what I think my bread-and-butter profession will become. So, with that, let me entertain you with some of my own thoughts. To be clear – there is zero point in me making these predictions. The only reason I do it is because I figured it’d be fun to share my own view of the future and frankly, there’s not many people who want to listen to me ranting about it so I have to write it somewhere. Hence, hereforth, I bring you the list:
- Product Managers, Program Managers and Software Engineers are likely going to (forcefully) morph into a single profession, something that could be called “Product Engineer” (or, you know, “Product Mangineer” if you want to keep it witty). I genuinely do not think that, in the future, there will be enough place for people specializing in any of those. You will likely have to be solid in all three and be able to utilize AI to the extent of becoming absolutely great in them. If not – you are likely at the risk of being left behind along the road.
- Amusingly, I do think that Project Managers will stay around because I just genuinely think that we have to have designated humans who manage all the stuff traveling at lightning speeds.
- I also think that QA Engineers might become way more needed than ever before. AI can do wonders but it needs to have guardrails against which it verifies itself. Without them, you are just pissing in the wind hoping for the best probable outcome. So, good test harness will be paramount and I genuinely don’t think that our previously invented Product Mangineers will be happy to do it. It needs to be a separate person made of flesh and bone.
- Solo founders will most likely have to be Solo-mangineers, because who the hell is going to give you money to pay for Engineers if you can do it by yourself by being persistent enough with any of the popular AI tools out there?
- Companies that offered outsourcing coding services will likely dry out in favor of companies paying higher salaries for fewer people who are colocated and able to iterate much faster.
- Speaking of people being colocated, I think it’s extremely likely we are going to see Return-to-Office (RTO) being mandated down our throats. And whatever you think about it (and I personally am a fan of having the option to choose), I do believe, to a point, that if you want to go ultra-fast, you have to be colocated so that you can DISCUSS fast. Or else the discussions and conversations become the bottleneck.
- Rate of burnouts will go through the roof. And I think it’s already happening. With the promise of AI being that you can be 10x whatever, the only obvious thing is to either reduce the necessary heads or to expect way more to be achieved with less; or just do both. And I really do wish a good luck to all of us on this as it’ll be a tough ride. I wrote dozens of articles on my own massive burnout that happened 10+ (or maybe even 15+ at this point?) years ago and let me tell you – that shit SUCKS. So plan accordingly!
And there you have it. Some of my own thoughts on the future, shared for zero other reason than just getting them out of my head. Do whatever you please with them. Disagree if you want. Share your own thoughts if you feel so. I’m not going to argue neither I claim I’m right. I’ve been wrong about A LOT of stuff and I’m just kind of used to it. But every once in a while, I do get lucky to have been right about something so let’s revisit this in couple of years and see how off was I.