I've seen this point a lot on the web, how people compare AI to junior devs, and bring up the idea of replacement. This is, of course, a pipe dream. In fact, I work with a few people just from the college, and I see how AI helps them get up to speed faster. Even senior engineers benefit a lot from AI coding.
Their value to the company is not in how fast they can churn out new code, but in the deep domain understanding they build, and in the agency to drive the project they are responsible for.
As for the "destroyed steps behind me", I wouldn't take the same steps if I were starting my career now. My point was to actively seek and learn what's needed by the industry.
Spot on, even though I'm not from the US originally.
I changed three countries, chasing the job pool availability.
Although I can't say I'm looking down on people who figured out how to live fulfilling lives without a job.
I find this extremely fortunate.
As for me, when I'm not building software products at work, I do it at home in my spare time.
And one thing I noticed is that the job is a great amplifier of my efforts.
I don't think I can have the same success or even impact through my pet projects.
So, in a way, not being proactive and fully engaged at work is wasting time.
Not being lazy per se, even though that might be related.
This suggests a possible trend in which the separation between development and managerial roles becomes less meaningful.
We can have more product engineers who combine software expertise with domain knowledge to deliver complete solutions independently.
Similar to how people operate in startups, wearing many hats and making progress quickly and autonomously.
I hate how this is acceptable to make such claims about another country without providing any evidence. Same goes for Chinese or Russian hackers. It’s just whoever the US government is unhappy about.
The article itself is evidence. There are many more links in it to other stories that report on basically the same or similar incidents. There are also several names in the article itself that you can research or probe on your own to tell if it's coming from a trustworthy source.
Consider also the author: it's written by an actual journalist/editor with a large body of pre-existing work in the field, and many of the claims written are backed up by quotes from a named source. It's not like they're writing all this and hiding it behind the weasel phrase 'according to a source close to the matter'.
The register too is actually UK founded, so it's not even American.
Your reaction is just so typical of people nowadays - just assume it's all 'made up' without any effort in debunking or picking apart any specific claims.
There's evidence, large investigations, and arrests aplenty already.
Justice Department Announces Coordinated, Nationwide Actions to Combat North Korean Remote Information Technology Workers’ Illicit Revenue Generation Schemes (justice.gov)
Law Enforcement Actions Across 16 States Result in Charges, Arrest, and Seizures of 29 Financial Accounts, 21 Fraudulent Websites, and Approximately 200 Computers
..
Today, the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts and the National Security Division announced the arrest of U.S. national Zhenxing “Danny” Wang of New Jersey pursuant to a five-count indictment. The indictment describes a multi-year fraud scheme by Wang and his co-conspirators to obtain remote IT work with U.S. companies that generated more than $5 million in revenue.
It's precisely because the enthusiasts are doing it for free that makes it viable. When a corporation manages Linux software, even if the software is freely available, they're paying for support time -- and if they're developing the software, as in this case, the development time.
exactly!
Another way to see it: engineering is the easy/cheap part. Testing, supporting, maintaining and marketing are way more expensive, and those are long-term expenses. The enthusiast usually thinks about the engineering bits, and when he's done with it he's done with it. Enterprise software is not like that - or shouldn't be :)
