Imagine, your are a Java developer with multiple years of experience in the job. You really like working with the language.

Your employer kind of canceled most of the Java projects of the company over time and is now really focused on AI… And AI means here: LLMs, GPT, … Not like basic Machine learning… It’s all about language models. Most of this stuff and the tools are written in Python and your employers wants you to kind of throw away your pretty good Java skills completely and start over in Python.

The new tasks would be kind of “easy”… You have to prototype “LLM bots”. And that’s your perspective for like at least 1.5 years. No, not real software development… Prototyping… And that means, quick and dirty is what they want… It’s also very easy to impress your employer with GPT doing things. Easy money, isn’t it?

I’m in this exact situation right now and worried… What, if I quit in 2 years and the new potential employer for a Java job asks “What have you done recently?”

I kind of liked working there and like the colleges and the salary is fine and switching the job and maybe moving away is a huge thing for me… It could get better… But maybe also worse…?

What would you do in my situation? Accepting it? Starting a rebellion? Looking for a new job somewhere else?

  • @[email protected]
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    98 months ago

    You’re a Java developer. Go do Java development where that’s needed. You can use this AI prototyping phase as a feather in your proverbial cap. Considering the landscape today, that might not be a bad thing.

    Of course, on the other hand this job gives you an income and something new to learn. If it’s uninteresting or unsatisfying then you have to make the decision on if it’s worth it to stay on.

    As others have said - go look and see what’s out there. You might find a better fit.