Decided to join the Listed's 100 Day Writing Challenge.

Honestly, will probably write a lot of topics related to IT and my own Opinions on it. Will be writing in my own style as I see fit, its my blog posts anyway...

AI & IT Jobs

Randomly came to my mind I guess, is the trends of AI and how it is replacing Jobs (at least in the tech sector). Wanted to share my opinions on the IT skill sets that AI can replace, and can't replace.

Given the rise of AI usage and leaders pushing for the narrative that AI can replace IT-related jobs, honestly, not surprising that there will be less hires and more layoffs. IT Employees are having anxiety if they are going to be replaced next.

As of writing this, the most recent mass layout was done by Oracle.

So how does one remain irreplaceable? One must constantly question, clarify and communicate. Or to summarize, pro-active communication.

Proactive Communication

Basically, the ability to initiate new conversations, topics or questions. This is something AI has yet to done. As an example, if you wanted to ask AI on how to do caching with spring boot, AI models does this:

1. You initiate a conversation on how to implement caching on spring boot.
2. AI gives you a solution, maybe some alternatives and suggestions.
3. If it doesn't work, you perform some prompts again with the problems/errors again (or make manual tweaks as you see fit).

No big deal, seems to be good. But lets see what would happen, if you had asked someone on how to do caching on SpringBoot:

1. You initiate a conversation on how to implement caching on spring boot.
2. They give you some solutions, alternatives and suggestions.
3. Also, they will probably ask you why and what your doing.
4. If it doesn't work, you continue to consult them. Or make manual tweaks and update them about it.

The difference? Here, the human will take some initiative and ask you questions. For what reason are you doing caching on spring boot? What problem are you trying to solve? The person is pro-active in questioning, opening new topics and communicating. New topics and conversations are initiated from either side. Where with AI, the AI is the reactive one, an AI only reacts to you and doesn't stop to think about what you are doing. AI tends to make assumptions, or don't further question if your response is 'vague' or generic.

I feel that this is the most important skill that anyone can learn, even beyond IT Sector. Honestly, I feel that the problem with AI is that they tend to 'just do' and don't question enough on the inputs given. Even when prompted to ask questions, I feel that they either miss the mark, or easily accept vague answers from the users.

Requirements Gathering

Anyone who has worked with projects with a client (or to an extend, a professor in a university settings) has experience this: Your clients says XYZ, you implement XYZ, and turns out they are not happy with it and there are a lot of change requests/feedback. Why? Well, because requirements specification in projects are tricky:

• Does the client really want XYZ? Or do they have a problem statement of ABC and thought that XYZ could solve it (Related: XY Problem).
  • Also, Projects should ideally be based on problem statements, not solutions.
• When the client mentioned XYZ, how did you perceive that XYZ, and was there any differences in perspection? Was there any assumptions made?
• For problem statement ABC, it is really a problem in the first place? Why not use existing solutions?

And, I think you get the idea, the ability to question the client and yourself is important. Clearing up all assumptions and making things as specific as possible, is something I feel AI has yet to achieve. Especially questioning the inputs of the client, haven't seen AI done well in that part yet.

And here's another important thing: if a solution already exists, the client probably wouldn't have called you to do the work. The client specifically requested you or your company to do the work because of either reasons:

1.The existing solution don't exactly cover their entire needs, probably missing a few key features.

2.The solution doesn't align with their security or privacy policies.

3.You (or the company) was the person who created the software. So, calling you up to help manage the maintenance of software for them, or scale it up for their amount of users.

1. Because hiring you to 'clone' the solution is cheaper than purchasing the software, or the license for the software. Honestly, rare case because time is a very expensive resource.

Basically, you are likely doing this project to either:

A. Design an existing solution, but with a 'spin' to fit to their requirements.

B. Design a new solution.

Either of which, requires a lot of active communication with the client to fully understand the problem statement and convey the solution. AI don't really do active communication, they only communicate when prompted to.

Internal Communication

Even beyond communication between clients, it is important to learn to do 'requirements gathering' on your own team as well

Imagine your a database administrator (DBA) and your developer requests to do modifications on the database to align with the updated application. A good DBA would implement and perform the database migration without issues. A better DBA would question the modifications before implementing and performing the database migration.

And if there's a need for velocity over stability, just perform the modification while questioning as well.

Its about staying in sync with your team and also helping to see if there are better alternatives. Imagine if your higher up asked why you did the database migration, which would sound better?

• "Oh, Adam made an update to the application and asked me to update the database. Ask him for the reason".
• "Oh, Adam made an update to the application to solve problem XYZ. He did it in ABC which required me to update the database tables."

The first one sounds like Adam just talked to an AI Chatbot and asked it to do database migration. The second sounds like an active team member who had at least gave some thought on the action he did, and knows whats going on between his teammates as well.

Finally, by questioning your teammate, you can also give your opinion and see 'gaps' which they have never seen. Maybe Adam saw that ABC was the best solution, but you had experience with problem XYZ before and know that an alternative solution exists just for the particular domain you are working in. From there, you can give the alternative solution and let Adam make judgement to see if the alternative solution is better than his. Difference between you and AI doing this? AI does it reactively, you do it pro-actively.

Tips

So just do good communication. But how? Well, simple pointers which I use:

• It is an XY Problem? Make sure its not.
• Are we on the same dictionary? When you say XYZ, is your definition of XYZ same as mine?
• Am I making any assumptions? Am I doing or thinking something beyond what you said?

There are probably 101+ pointers, tips and lessons out there from better professionals than me who can perform better communication which you can do deep dive on which you can look out for. I just wanted to do a blog post on my own opinions on it so heres that.

Afterword

Wanted to give a full list of skill-sets and whatnot, of which AI can or can't replace. But halfway through realized I was just yapping and repeating myself a bit. Honestly, I really believe that active, thinking communication in IT sector (or any sector) is something which AI cant replace. Any pro-active communication is good communication.

If I have to say the skill-sets to hone in these AI times:

• Communication Skills
• Domain Specific Technical Skills
  • Niche skills that AI, and majority probably don't know much about.
• Validation and Testing skills.
  • Ability to make sure that AI, or anyone for that matters, didn't do what you didn't want.

And honestly, being loud. You may have 101 skills to offer for employer, but they won't hire you if employers don't know about it.