Reposting a question for Ed Zitron, I'll forward responses. He asked on Bluesky and will get sub-Mastodon-tier answers:
"This is a serious question and I would be delighted if I only hear great things but, software engineers: both before and after LLMs, how often in your professional lives have you run into software engineers that seem completely useless or lacking in basic knowledge? I hope the answer is rarely"
@ludicity Rarely, indeed.
In "the old days", people were hand-picked (hire for attitude, train for skill) and very few fell behind over time.
With LLMs around, we decided to introduce an #AIBadge, a qualification you need internally to use AI for manipulating product code. Generate all the unit tests and dev docs you like, but you have to prove you can do an outstanding dev job without AI before you get to use it.
That way, we are still training up our new recruits to a level where it's reasonably safe to use AI, and we don't lose our source of qualified engineers.
Luckily, our business model does not force us to go all-in with AI. Plus, freeing up time from the most experienced engineers gives us the biggest edge, speed-wise.