Great, then we can use AI to solve the problems given a set of requirements, and spend more time thinking about what the requirements are by understanding the users.

PM and software development will converge more and more as AI gets better.

The best PMs will be the ones who can understand customers and create low-fidelity prototypes or even "good enough" vibe coded solutions to customers

The best engineers will be the ones who use their fleet of subagents to work on the "correct" requirements, by understanding their customers

At the end of the day, we are using software to solve people's problems. Those who understand that, and have skills around diving in and navigating people's problems will come out ahead

The best way to get an idea is to do something for 5-10+ years, learn the limitations, learn what's missing.

2nd best way is to meet those people and talk to them. The more of them from different backgrounds you talk to, the more ideas you can get

100% untrue. Hiring is a social game. You want to put your best foot forward, and then slowly let out your truer self over time. Much like dating - you don't want to air all your dirty laundry on the first date. Don't lie about who you are but at the same time people are more tolerant of your quirks once they get to know you better

I actually more or less did air all my dirty laundry on my first date with my wife, and we've been together since 2013, so at least that worked out ok.

Still overall I think I agree with you. I think most techy people tend to like me if they talk to me for awhile, but I can be kind of abrasive with initial impressions.

I'm just psychoanalyzing myself at this point; overall good advice...thanks!

While I completely agree with hiding who you are for work, I code switch for work with the best of them. I am a customer facing consultant in rooms with decision makers, I aired all of my dirty laundry with my now wife because I didn’t want to waste my time or hers.

We had been working together for two years. But not in the same department. I just started talking to her one day in the parking lot and she finally said “are you going to stop staring at me and ask for my number”.

I was not thinking about dating at the time. I had just come out of a bad situation less than a year earlier and I was trying to get my financial house in order - it was 2011 and I had made some bad real estate decisions before the housing crash and I was trying to get my career on track.

I was happy with just hanging out with my long term female friends at the time and they provided all of the emotional and companionship needs I had with no complications. My friends and I traveled together, went out on “dates” (do you call it that when you are just doing date like things with no emotional or physical expectations?) etc.

When I told my now wife all I was going through it didn’t scare her away. She was just as up front with me. We were married seven months later. 15 years in, I still don’t feel like she kept anything from me that I didn’t know about her during the first two weeks and vice versa.

This though is horrible general advice as far as dating. I wasn’t pursuing her. We knew of each other from work so I wasn’t a complete stranger and we were both in our mid 30s and divorced then and she had two boys.

I wasn’t in the headspace to seriously be in the “dating scene” then.

I know how to small talk now and have studied conversational skills for my career. If I were out there now, I would do things differently.

A good reason to have an anonymous account to post negative things on. Never post honest negativity under your real name. Unless you work for yourself or your vulnerability is a sort of marketing, you're only hurting yourself. Make an anon account, vent as much as you want.

If I'm hiring someone, I want to like working with them, and if I find them ranting online, I just mark them as negative and pessimistic. I can't help it - that's human nature

> If I'm hiring someone, I want to like working with them, and if I find them ranting online, I just mark them as negative and pessimistic. I can't help it - that's human nature

I understand this, but we can agree that this kind of sucks, doesn't it? Everyone has bad days where they're frustrated about something and could write something a bit cynical in the process. I don't think that's reflective of their entire personality. From Ted Lasso:

> I hope that either all of us or none of us are judged by the actions of our weakest moments… but rather by the strength we show when, and if we’re ever given a second chance

Dunno, obviously you don't want someone who's a downer all the time, but I feel like the permanence of the internet can skew perspectives.

Sure, but when I've spent 30 mins talking to you and you look the same on paper as the other 5 competent candidates and I need to make a choice on who to hire, any data point that portrays you negatively is an easy way to narrow my decision.

In any job I've had (all remote), just message any person with some experience with the thing you're working on. They're always more than happy to bounce ideas or hop on a call and chat about it

> Hey, I'm working on feature A that needs X, Y, Z solutions. I see you worked on something similar, I'm trying to figure out the right way forward. Can I bounce some ideas off you?

Works with people without the experience

> Hey I'm working thru a problem and having trouble coming to a solution, any chance I could bounce some ideas off you?

Basically I've never had a "mentor" and I just ask people questions

> working at a remote startup since

This was my first job too. The upside was the freedom to explore on my own. The downside was lack of experienced coworkers. So I quit after a few years to get more of those.

AI is also decent at answering these kinds of questions, but less rewarding since it's not a human you can chat with

That makes a ton of sense, thank you!

Totally agreed, which is why I'm sticking with my editor (neovim) regardless of whatever AI thing is hot and using tools outside/analogous to it, currently claude code

> Which means you should need fewer of them, no?

I've never worked at a company that didn't have an endless backlog of work that needs to be done. In theory, AI should enable devs to churn through that work slightly faster, but at the same time, AI will also allow PMs/work creators to create even more work to do.

I don't think AI fundamentally changes companies hiring strategies for knowledge workers. If a company wants to cheap out and do the same amount of work with less workers, then they're leaving space for their competitors to come and edge them out

> I make stupid decisions reacting to those feelings.

Yea it seems like the right thing to do is to step away and take a sabbatical to cool down, and then remember that we like money, and that it's just part of the game to get paid.

What do you mean "we?"

I don't "like" a hammer, but I appreciate what I can do with it.

I think of money as more like a love/hate/appreciate relationship. I hate what I have to do to obtain money, but I love living indoors, so I appreciate the benefits having money provides.

Keep playing a wicked game whose rules are stacked against you for the shiny trophy. I’ll see you in therapy in a few years.

I guess another bit of advice is to do whatever you need to do to avoid ending up talking like this.

I mean the grandparent poster isn’t wrong. This whole system is stacked against us.

It’s difficult to keep moving knowing that we don’t have the ability to opt out of the way our whole society works. This is a very broad discussion that I know has many different facets to it, but the grandparent poster seems to be calling out what a lot of people believe is true.

I think when you start talking like this, you're winding yourself up, which is just not a good way to confront tough decisions.

> It’s difficult to keep moving knowing that we don’t have the ability to opt out of the way our whole society works.

Pretty much nobody ever did, in any society, with few exceptions. "Going to America" was one exception, and then "going west". But for most people, for most of civilization, that has never been an option.

And, in fact, the whole system is stacked against us less than it has been for most of the history of civilization. You aren't a serf. You aren't a slave. You aren't an indentured servant, or bound to a ruler or leader in any way.

But I think what many people are feeling is the first derivative. There was a time when the system worked better for people (at least for white males) - say the 1950s or 1960s. People can feel the first derivative being negative. They feel the loss of something. I think that's behind the surge of this sentiment.

> There was a time when the system worked better for people (at least for white males) - say the 1950s or 1960s

Even before adding qualifiers like “in America, in certain industries”, etc. You have to be very specific about what you mean by better and how you measure it.

There are certainly things that are worse now than then, but most of the time when someone actually measures it’s mostly true things were worse in the 50s and 60s.

Yes because white straight males have it so hard in America now all the statistics show it…

Is Reddit bleeding into HN now? The anti-work subs often feature these whiny hot takes like "woe is me, I don't get to do whatever I want" followed by a comical self-impressed implication that there's a great academic discourse behind this profound thought. Not used to seeing it here though.

I don’t think it’s specifically Reddit, but more like “normal life” bleeding into HN. The tech industry (and therefore, HN) has this weird “positive thoughts only” vibe where everything negative is considered whiny and curmudgeonly (as the newest HN posting guideline puts it).

Uncritical “this is great, that is awesome, things are wonderful” posts get a pass here and are not held to some high academic discourse standard, while “things are not so great, life is not that good” posts get responses like we’ve seen in this thread.

On the contrary, there are plenty of things to complain about and I personally find HN to be a tough, even cynical, audience. The guidelines don't say you can't be negative, you just have to explain your reasoning.

One doesn't have to subscribe to toxic positivity to see the childish absurdity of a statement like "It’s difficult to keep moving knowing that we don’t have the ability to opt out of the way our whole society works."

Regarding the childish statement: I think we’ve all felt like that at some point in our lives. If you haven’t, I kind of envy you. I can admit that when I had a child I agonized over the fact that I was bringing a life into this pretty terrible world without considering whether that new life wanted to be in it. Nobody actively consented to being part of society, it’s just a default. And it is extremely difficult to opt-out. I don’t think that’s a particularly absurd belief.

I have felt like that. When I was a child.

And you totally can opt out. You can go live in a mud hut in the woods. People do it all the time. But we both know that's not what the original commenter means by "opting out of society". They mean "I want to opt out of contributing to society while somehow still enjoying its benefits". Sorry, but it just doesn't work that way, and it is indeed childish to think that it should, at least as long as those benefits come from the contributions of other people.

Hi, I don’t fully disagree with you, but a gentle reminder that for many “contribution” is itself out of reach.

An aside: I remember when I was a child, my dad’s favorite coffee mug was black ceramic with a white monotype slogan “Life’s a bitch and then you die”. If that made you chuckle, maybe you’re in a pretty good spot :)

First I’d like to state that if you look at my post history I’ve been here far before the bleed in from Reddit. Your whole response is pretty cynical and leads in the negative direction so I don’t know how you would want to have a positive interaction with your comment, but I’ll try anyway.

Regarding “woe is me, I don’t get to do whatever I want”. No, that’s not the way that I’m thinking. It’s more that people CAN feel this way at one point or another in this society of ours. The original comment that I responded too was simply belittling the op for having those types of thoughts. It’s valid and important to address those feelings. Whether or not you can do anything to change the way society is based on those is another story.

I do believe that there is an actual discussion to be had about adjusting our society to allow for a more healthy balance, that’s not stacked against the middle and lower classes. I love my craft as a software engineer and I plan to continue working even if I make it to retirement. It’s just that the system we live in could be more kind to the people in it.

I love HN, but this type of mentality is pretty toxic and isn’t conducive to the healthy conversations that I enjoy in it AWAY from Reddit.

The person who told you you'd forever have a job working in tech lied.

It goes beyond this. Reading is a form of entertainment. There has been an explosion of new and different forms of personal entertainment, so books now have to compete not just with old books, but movies, video games, social media, etc etc etc

While the AI is running, go work on something else. Go write a doc, or write a test, answer an email, work on another part of your feature that won't interfere with the AI, etc

I know some people have trouble with the context switching but I've been full stack at small companies my whole career so I context switch constantly every day so I'm used to it.