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Building a Software Career in an LLM World

Sumner Evans

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Senior Implementation Tech Lead at Can/Am Technologies

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The Punchline

Getting an entry-level software job is harder now than at any time in at least the last decade.

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Building a career in software is (and always has been) hard, but highly rewarding if you succeed.

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Agenda

  • Career Tracks
  • Making Senior Engineer and Beyond
  • How LLMs Affect Career Tracks

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Eye on the Goal

A job is just what you do to make money

A career is your vocation, profession, and life-work

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Nobody cares about your career as much as you do.

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Career Tracks

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Making Senior Software Engineer and Beyond

The key is ownership!

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Making Senior Software Engineer and Beyond

We will use the Circle CI Engineering Competency Matrix as a guide: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/131XZCEb8LoXqy79WWrhCX4sBnGhCM1nAIz4feFZJsEo

  • Competencies scale through areas of influence / impact:�own work on task -> epic -> project / milestone / team -> across teams -> engineering organisation -> company
  • Competencies scale through increased frequency:�sometimes -> usually -> always demonstrating a competency

Let’s look at some examples

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Caring is Key

  • Ask Questions
    • It's OK to not know. That's why you're junior, not senior!
  • Care about the work you’ve been tasked with

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Software produced by people who care about the software they write will always be better than software produced by people who don’t care, regardless of how the code is written.

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Performance Metrics

  • Junior -> scope impact limited to yourself and the work you’re assigned
    • Can you write code that follows the patterns and expectations of your team?
    • Do you understand the team's goals and processes?
    • Are you able to perform the work assigned to you, with help from others as necessary?
  • Senior-plus -> scope of impact is the entire team, organization, or company
    • Are you fostering an environment of documentation?
    • Are you establishing processes to help increase efficiency across the organisation?
    • Are you helping others deliver their work more effectively?

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Making Senior Software Engineer and Beyond

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How LLMs Affect Career Tracks

I’m an LLM skeptic.

  • The business models don’t make sense
  • LLMs will not get us to AGI
  • LLMs are not profitable
  • LLMs are energy intensive
  • LLMs are making society worse

However, LLMs do increase the speed at which text (and therefore code) can be generated

LLMs are here to stay

The value of text generation is deflating rapidly

An engineer's ability to write code will depreciate in value

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Case Study: Mining Engineering

  • Computers automated mine planning, modelling, etc.
  • Less people understand the basics, and rely more on the computer systems.
  • Junior engineers spend more time on the computer and less time in the field.
  • Entry-level engineers are expected to quickly learn the tools to do the job.

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LLMs Effects on Software Engineer Expectations

Step-change in the performance expectations of roles across the economy (including software)

Junior software engineers will no longer be able to differentiate themselves just by being good at writing code

Expectations of entry-level engineers will include attributes currently only expected of more senior engineers

As the expectations of entry-level engineers increase, so too will the requirements for more seasoned engineers

Standard "career level" in the industry will look more like a staff engineer than a senior engineer

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Conclusion

Nothing in life is guaranteed

Don’t just let your career happen to you

Building a career is hard, but the journey is more than worth it