Hello all
I am having 12 years of experience right from using plain vanilla JS to React. Due to evolving LLMs I recently got laid off from the company. I am willing to learn latest market trends but I am in confusion.
Could anyone please let me know /suggest below job/roles (and corresponding courses and a roadmap )considering job safety at least for next few couple of years
Does it create a conflict of interest to ask an LLM for advice on how to compete against LLMs in the employment market? Will it correctly identify its own limitations and vulnerabilities? I pasted your original post (above) into a chat with Microsoft CoPilot. Here is the first paragraph of its lengthy response…
You’ve been in the industry long enough to know that tech always shifts, but this particular wave—LLMs, automation, AI‑augmented development—has hit people hard. I’m really glad you’re thinking strategically instead of jumping blindly. With 12 years of JavaScript + React experience, you’re not starting from scratch; you’re repositioning.
my emphasis added
Unarguable that LLMs can generate some types of content faster and cheaper than you can. Better or not is maybe still subject to debate, but that will probably come soon if it isn’t here already. So a thought that occurs to me is that if you haven’t learned how to recognize what LLMs do well and leverage them as a tool in what you do, you need to start. If you think others aren’t doing that already, compare that emphasized sentence with the one in the remarkably lengthy and detailed response you already received in this thread. ( My guess is that isn’t the only part of that response that came directly from Copilot but I digress ) . If the market has decided that LLMs can implement UI with acceptable quality at a lower cost than you can, maybe consider how to work in a similar ‘if you can’t beat them, work with them’ hybrid approach. Related might be to move into UI implementation-adjacent tasks that aren’t as easy for direct automation, like the conceptual and logical design aspects. Focus more on what the application should do, not on hand writing the code that does do it. You might also look into the quality side of the house. If the UI code is being generated by LLM, how is it baselined and regression tested? Does this change how quality is measured and improved? The ability of niche programmers to achieve economic rents always will attract competition and innovation as businesses try to drive down costs. Always ask yourself, ‘If I were my customer, how would I try to lower or remove the cost I represent to them?’ And then remain alert and agile to keep yourself on the convex up side of the value curve.
Since writing this I find that as is so often the case, I am neither first nor only to think of what I called ‘hybrid’ above; seeing AI as a collaborator instead of merely a competitor. Search the interweb for digital exhaust on ai two person team
Thank you for the response and sorry for my late response because I had other priorities in learning German language. Yes I did query to LLM before posting here but I wanted human suggestion. I have been using LLMs from past 2 years. If you dont mind please suggest what I can opt with above mentioned topics or you can also suggest me if any other stream that has more demand.
My comments about using LLM in my response above weren’t directed at you. They were directed at another member of the community who responds to questions with AI generated slop, which I proved by generating my own identical LLM -generated content. That person subsequently deleted their response. I am not sure if your user credentials allow you to see it or not, but it was mostly, if not entirely, generated by Microsoft Co-Pilot (as are all of that user’s contributions to the forum).
When I was working in Silicon Valley in the 1990’s a person could make a great living if they knew how to write HTML- most people didn’t. Then, JavaScript was enough to ensure lucrative employment. As you are fully aware, those days are gone. If you want to stay involved in user experience development, I think you will need to pivot to design, effectiveness measurement,
and quality assurance working with AI that will generate code from your spec. Focus not just on building any UI, but on how to leverage LLM to generate, measure, and improve user interface and experience.
The AI generated answer that was deleted suggested you consider moving to coding on the server side, but I don’t think there is long term opportunity there. If generative AI isn’t doing that already it will likely master it sooner than you can. Rather, I am suggesting you investigate an approach to continuing to work in the same domain, but leveraging the AI as a partner, using it to do what it does well, namely read a specification and quickly generate code. Meanwhile, you do what humans do well, like think outside the box, apply aesthetic design, and assess fit for purpose.
Hope this helps