
Ask HN: Is Product Management a safer bet in 2017? - cofounderYC17
AI is moving fast and coding will soon be handled by machines. We, the developers, will lose our jobs. Most of us are pushing features, fixing bugs, etc. Things that don&#x27;t involve creativity, decision making or business knowledge.<p>I have a feeling that Product Management will be the next big thing moving forward. Call me crazy - but it seems like a perfect candidate for software &quot;development&quot;. All you need is to come up with a set of features and an MVP in mind, then the machines will build it for you.<p>What do you think? Should we make the switch now?
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rfc
I don't mean for this comment to come off as condescending but if you think
that all a PM does is "come up with features and an MVP" and have people build
it, then I think you ought to really go talk to multiple PMs to get their
perspective on what their job entails.

Coming up with features is just one of the 100s of different items a PM will
do on a daily basis.

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cofounderYC17
Of course... listing all the PM tasks is not the point here. I'm referring to
tasks that are in direct relationship with coding. If we get rid of the coding
step then the closest thing is the PM. Which is the point I'm trying to make
here.

I sure know about the vision, strategy, blablabla... that's why I think it's
the best bet, because those skills will be harder to replace compared to
programming languages.

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itamarst
I think AI is not going to replace programmers for decades to come:
[https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/02/19/ai-replace-
programme...](https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/02/19/ai-replace-programmers/)

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arms
> Should we make the switch now?

You can, but until I see evidence that "We, the developers, will lose our
jobs" any time soon, I'm going to continue doing what makes me happy, and
that's coding.

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shahbaby
The fact is that no one knows how close or how far we are from true general
intelligence.

A human will be needed until that happens.

After that point, how our society will change is anyone's guess.

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wayn3
sounds like you are working an assembly line. you should certainly switch
jobs, but for different reasons.

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cofounderYC17
Sounds like you've never heard about Agile/Scrum and the software lifecycle.
Developers are resources, they get allocated on a set of tasks. Have you ever
heard of velocity? It's the number of tasks a group of developers can complete
in one single iteration. It's called productivity. Welcome to the modern world
my friend, it is indeed a factory out there and I don't know where you work
but it might be outdated. You should google about the Software lifecycle. It's
good to know if you're in the software business.

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imauld
> Welcome to the modern world my friend, it is indeed a factory out there and
> I don't know where you work but it might be outdated.

The Manifesto for Agile Software Development turned 10 years old... in 2011.

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cofounderYC17
Sure, the first car was invented in 1807. Ford was created in 1903. The
upcoming Ford GT (limited production) became one of the most wanted car in
history last year.

You need to understand the difference between creation, industrialization and
adoption.

