The 80% Problem: The Last 20% Is Where the Engineer Used to Live(jonathanbeard.io) |
The 80% Problem: The Last 20% Is Where the Engineer Used to Live(jonathanbeard.io) |
it's true. once you've gone "deep" for a few years in at least one technical domain, that depth transfers pretty well to the next big new thing you didn't know you'd have to learn when you started. i think the fear about the new regime is that people will be denied the opportunity to obtain depth in anything. like we'll encounter the human equivalent of domestication syndrome.
i remember when certain loud individuals believed that {managed memory | IDE auto-complete | statistical db optimizers | programming languages higher than assembly level | ...} were going to make everyone stupid. but the higher-order systems have continued to present rich problems to engage the mind and spark creativity. this era feels different though, the worry more pressing.
At the risk of seeming pedantic, 80/20 is not a “metaphor”. The OP calls it that “old joke” (which is a metaphor). I would call it a “rule of thumb” or an “model” (“abstract model” might be the term).
> Generative AI hasn’t repealed this rule. It’s relocated it
But these are things that the AI actually knows how to do just about as well as regular developer would. I run into these problems all the time working on a trading platform and AI is quite good at solving these issues and discussing them if you have questions or providing a collection of strategies you can choose from.
Find a role maintaining services instead of scrambling to build shiny new products, and you'll have what you want.
There is plenty to do. The last decade of "move fast and break things" broke a lot of things. The work is challenging and rewarding. You're not cleaning up slop. You're not being given so much rope to hang yourself. You will work with people that have been there for decades. They are not all backwards thinking corporate Java devs.