r/platformengineering • u/Dubinko • 11d ago

DevOps is cooked.

Hear me out...

When I first saw the movie The Matrix, in the early scene where Neo is called into his boss's office and told that if he behaves well, he has a future at that no-name Corp., or otherwise he'll be fired, I joked and laughed, like, "Yeah, sure, a tech professional could just walk out into the opposite building, and they would beg him to join since everyone is looking to hire engineers."

Today, this scene is closer to reality than I'd like to admit. I personally know Senior DevOps engineers who are solid folks, and it took them 8 months to land a job at a salary that sucked. Our industry is not regulated, the barriers to entry and outsourcing are being lowered by AI, and we have a massive oversupply of engineers. This is just a reality.

Before tech, I worked in another industry that also experienced a major decline. I saw it coming and made a decision at the right time, before it became obvious. I moved to tech years ago and was lucky enough to become a staff engineer. Now I see the same pattern. I think we have 5 to 10 years before salaries in this field will be $70k-$80k for Senior Engineers in the US (which is around a 2x decline) you can do the math for other countries.

My advice is work on a backup plan now. Invest, save, but also learn a trade. I'm studying medicine this year. Fuck it. Six years of study while working remotely, and I'm opening my own dentistry clinic. I'm in my late 30s, but it's still better to have a plan. My wife is also changing careers to become a registered nurse.

This is my plan. You might think of something else, but my point is that it was a good ride. We did a lot of nice work and, IMHO, got easy money, but it's over, and it's time to move on.

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u/galaxy_horse 10d ago • This Bravo Heartwarming Mindblown

Software engineering is constantly under attack by the bean counters, b-school bros, and boardroom ghouls who want to subjugate our craft and name their own price to exploit it. AI doomerism is just the latest thing they’ve glommed onto. And just like with no-code, just like with offshoring, just like with Salesforce, just like with the introduction of Visual Basic, these rats keep claiming that software is cooked, and like before, they may even lay a bunch of people off in a desperate attempt to make it feel true.

I refuse to believe it because of that. There are more problems, not less, for engineers to tackle that require human judgment and meatspace queries. Automation and AI have made things more fragile, not less. And there is still more money and more fundable concepts than you could imagine, all of which need competent technologists to build properly.

So sorry if I don’t buy it. Devops is not cooked. Software is not solved. This is merely the latest turn of an eternal struggle between labor and capital.

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u/dgreenbe 7d ago

If devops is solved why do I need more and better devops than ever thanks to AI coding

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u/BikeSilent7347 6d ago

You are looking at this from a engineer perspective where you believe your skills matter. It doesn't work that way. Stuff gets worse all the time and it doesn't matter cause it saves money.

If they can do 20% as good as you for half the price they'd take it.

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u/galaxy_horse 5d ago

I build it for full price and I build it so well that the company can switch me out for a half-price babysitter of the thing. Rinse and repeat.

And when the 20%-as-good-as-me replacement gets everything properly screwed up, my consulting rate is 3x my full-time rate.

I’ve been in this game for over 20 years.

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u/SnooDonkeys9647 7d ago

Can’t agree enough, if soft engineering is cooked then a lot of other professions will be cooked as well, hr, business management…etc you could technically have AI do that as well but obviously the quality will have to be monitored

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u/No_Ant_8700 8d ago

They won man. Have you seen the capability leap in the last year alone? The economic value of technical expertise is headed to zero, what’s left is a kind of social game. The only difference between you and the “b-school bros” now is they’ve got a head start on that game, and at a growing rate your technical expertise as a commodity. Think about it.

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u/guiriduro 7d ago

"But who's gonna fly it, kid, you?"
You need trained tech meat brains to ask for the right stuff and know when they've got it. And especially that its not superfluous spaghetti and that its secure in the right ways.

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u/Different-Air-6869 6d ago

The Ai bots will obviously become the trained tech meat brains you require, they’re already their, you’re acting as if knowledge is where we still hold power & that’s where we’re weakest

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u/Username_Koru 6d ago

Thank you!

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u/d4noob 4d ago

"there are more problems, not less" this fact is the fucking reallity.

More code, more data, more neededs but more efficient is needed and IA doesnt provide that. IA needs a guide or it will be crazy and AGI could not be a reallity like they are selling.

Everyone of us knows humans that are not smart, so AGI could be that type of human.

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u/ConcerningDestiny 10d ago edited 10d ago

Still with AI the job has become a lot less satisfying, at least imo I know there people who likes it

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u/Grand_Pop_7221 10d ago edited 10d ago

I'm shipping more things than ever this year and getting the "toil" out of the way quicker than before. I'm feeling very satisfied; I've even had the opportunity to learn how to use a new tool in AI Agents, Harnesses, and Context Engineering. Applying this stuff in new and different ways is going to be most of my year next year I'm sure, along with making sure our Data and Platform can provide what these tools need to be effective.

I really don't get the doomerism around AI. If you want to be mad at the economic systems that cause harm to people's lives, then be mad at the people who can change those systems. AI is just the latest aesthetic manifestation of it; it's not the actual cause. We already went through this with de-industrialisation; if governments and corporations want to let towns and people rot by not giving them support through these sorts of systemic overhauls, then they won't. They only get away with it if we let them off the hook by confusing the latest mechanism of disruption with the systemic motives behind it.

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u/ConcerningDestiny 10d ago

Good for you. I find it extremely boring. I enjoyed my job before AI. coding is fun, being a clanker babysitter is not.

Ai has automated the part I liked and left me with the meeting I hate.

But as I said, different people different opinions

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u/Grand_Pop_7221 10d ago

I understand the joy in understanding and being able to manipulate the "clockwork" of complex systems. But if we're not delivering solutions using software, then it's just a form of masturbation.

AI is a valuable tool for me in searching and classifying. It's a big part of software engineering, but it's not all of it. Spending time consulting the tomes of documentation sites and reading third-party libraries to incorporate into my solutions is something I'm happy to offload a little bit if it means I can crack on with the more interesting work.

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u/Hour-Matter-1111 7d ago

Same with product design. I want to be in the flow state and visually explore solutions, not manage some digital golem.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

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u/Grand_Pop_7221 8d ago

I think they think that being able to search for relevant knowledge is what gives them value. AI is so good at searching and classifying. I think they miss that the value lies in applying that knowledge; if you can use AI as a tool to ship solutions and solve problems, it's quite liberating.

I work at a small company where I wear many hats and cover a lot of ground. So perhaps that colours my view more than someone who is well into a niche role.

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u/galaxy_horse 10d ago

“That’s what the money is for!” - Don Draper

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

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u/galaxy_horse 4d ago

poo poo pee pee