[Sparkyte]

As an SRE I can tell you AI can't do everything. I have done a little software development, even AI can't do everything. What we are likely to see is operational engineering become the consolidated role between the two. Knows enough about software development and knows enough about site reliability... blamo operational engineer.

[mellosouls]

"As an SRE I can tell you AI can't do everything."

That's what they used to say about software engineering and yet this is becoming less and less obvious as capabilities increase.

There are no hiding places for any of us.

[TuxSH]

Not the person you are replying to but, even if the technical skills of AI increase (and stuff like Codex and Claude Code is indeed insanely good), you still need someone to make risky decisions that could take down prod.

Not sure management is eager to give permission to software owned by other companies (inference providers) the permission to delete prod DBs.

Also these roles usually involve talking to other teams and stakeholder more often than with a traditional SWE role.

Though

> There are no hiding places for any of us.

I agree with this statement. While the timeline is unclear (LLM use is heavily subsidized), I think this will translate into less demand for engineers, overall.

[bigstrat2003]

It's still perfectly obvious as AI can't remotely write software if you want it to actually, you know, work.

[squidbeak]

Paraphrase: "As an SRE I can tell you that the undetermined and unknowable potential of AI definitely won't involve my job being replaced."

[Sparkyte]

Actually it is more that my role will transform and I have no say in it.