Careers
I'm not (too) worried for 20‑somethings. I'm worried for 40‑somethings
The situation for 40-somethings is much more perilous than 20-somethings.
The situation for 40-somethings is much more perilous than 20-somethings.
Whenever the impact of AI on jobs comes up, the concern normally lands on the junior engineers. Someone who’s just a few short years into their journey into development, right as AI starts to eat away at engineering as a whole. It feels like cruel timing.
The 20-something
And it is cruel. But I’m not sure that’s how things will play out. A few short years is not a career, it’s a start. Asking a 20-something to change career direction is not a huge ask, and most will pivot without much drama. They haven’t had time to build their career identityThis is the key difference around their skills. They can evolve to the changing needs of AI without the burdensenior engineers have their own, internal tech debt of deeply learnt skills which are under threat of years of expectation and process.
The 40-something
for the 40-something this is an emotional problem more than a technical one. Skills aren’t the blockerBut for the 40-something, it is an entirely different proposition. They are halfway through a career in software development. They likely have a mortgage, dependents and a title to protect. They are now being advised to pivot aggressively into something nobody can clearly describe or define. It’s less a skills problem, and more a sunk-cost problem, and sunk costs are emotional.
Few agencies will invest in retraining our 40-something engineer. There is no industry best practice or programmebest practice in AI is constantly changing - it’s exhausting for this. The people best placed to help are the ones under the same pivoting pressureEthan Mollick discusses the logical hesitance to share AI successes through job fear in Co-Existence.
Play to your strengths
experience is the one you have that the 20-something and AI do not. You know why projects fall apartSo here’s what I say to people in this situation. You need to play to your strengths. The thing you have that the 20-something and AI do not, is experience. You’ve watched three platform migrations go wrong and know why. You can smell a bad project manager, but you also know what to do about it. You know why a definition of success is important and the consequences of not having one. You know which shortcuts cost nothing and which are likely to become tomorrow’s tech debt.
You know the codebases and where the bodies are buried.
AI is remarkable at churning out code. But it has no risk aversion - it has no concept of responsibility, accountability or consequencesAI is a compelling narcissist. The judgment must be yours and it is not something you can prompt for, it is something you accumulate over twenty years of being in the roomjudgment is experience, not guesswork.
The 20-something loses a few years but AI gives them the potential to leapfrog into complex code generation. They have the opportunity to grow with the new technology. But for the 40-somethings, they are in danger of losing the career they have spent years building.
I know who I am most concerned about.