As a junior dev, I do two conscious things to make sure I'll still be relevant for the workforce in the future.
1. I try to stay somewhat up to date with ML and how the latest things work. I can throw together some python, let it rip through a dataset from kaggle, let models run locally etc. Have my linalg and stats down and practiced. Basically if I had to make the switch to be an ML/AI engineer it would be easier than if I had to start from zero.
2. I otherwise am trying to pivot more to cyber security. I believe current LLMs produce what I would call "untrusted and unverified input" which is massively exploitable. I personally believe that if AI gets exponentially better and is integrated everywhere, we will also have exponentially more security vulnerabilities (that's just an assumption/opinion). I also feel we are close to cyber security being taken more seriously or even regulated e.g. in the EU.
At the end of the day I think you don't have to worry if you have the "curiosity" that it takes to be a good software engineer. That is because, in a world where knowledge, experience and willingness to probe out of curiosity will be even more scarce than they are now you'll stand out. You may leverage AI to assist you but if you don't fully and blindly rely on it you'll always be the more qualified worker than someone who does.
I'm shocked that I had to dig this deep in the comments to see someone mention cybersecurity.
Same as you, seeing this trend, I'm doubling down on security. As more businesses "hack away" their projects. It's going to be a big party. I'm sure black hats are thrilled right now.
Will LLMs be able to secure their code? I'm not so sure. Even human-written code is exploitable. That's their source for training.
1. I try to stay somewhat up to date with ML and how the latest things work. I can throw together some python, let it rip through a dataset from kaggle, let models run locally etc. Have my linalg and stats down and practiced. Basically if I had to make the switch to be an ML/AI engineer it would be easier than if I had to start from zero.
2. I otherwise am trying to pivot more to cyber security. I believe current LLMs produce what I would call "untrusted and unverified input" which is massively exploitable. I personally believe that if AI gets exponentially better and is integrated everywhere, we will also have exponentially more security vulnerabilities (that's just an assumption/opinion). I also feel we are close to cyber security being taken more seriously or even regulated e.g. in the EU.
At the end of the day I think you don't have to worry if you have the "curiosity" that it takes to be a good software engineer. That is because, in a world where knowledge, experience and willingness to probe out of curiosity will be even more scarce than they are now you'll stand out. You may leverage AI to assist you but if you don't fully and blindly rely on it you'll always be the more qualified worker than someone who does.