My Honest Thoughts on the Future of Software Engineering - How do we evolve in the AI world❓
Summary
TLDRIn this video, the speaker discusses the future of software engineering, emphasizing its dual nature as both art and craft. With AI making software development more accessible, the importance of quality in software solutions will increase. The speaker encourages aspiring software engineers to build real projects that solve real problems, engage with communities, and gain real users to learn and improve. The ultimate goal is to create software that not only solves problems but also generates revenue, potentially leading to a successful startup.
Takeaways
- 💡 Software engineering is both an art and a craft, requiring technical expertise, precision, and creativity.
- 🔮 The future of software engineering will see a blend of art and craft, with AI making software development more accessible.
- 📈 The quality of software engineering will become even more critical as AI enables the creation of more software with higher expectations.
- 🏆 To stand out, software engineers must focus on building high-quality, thoughtfully designed solutions that solve real problems.
- 🛠️ Instead of cloning popular apps, build real projects that address genuine issues to demonstrate depth in thinking and design.
- 🤔 Engage with a community to discuss and build upon real-world problems and solutions.
- 🌐 Build in public to connect with like-minded individuals, gain feedback, and attract users.
- 👥 Listen to feedback from real users to identify bugs, optimize, and improve the user experience.
- 💼 Real users are more likely to pay for software that solves their problems effectively.
- 🚀 Aim to build startups that solve specific pain points, potentially leading to a sustainable business with recurring revenue.
Q & A
What does the speaker believe software engineering to be?
-The speaker believes software engineering is both an art and a craft, requiring technical expertise, precision, creativity, and innovation.
How does the speaker think AI will impact the future of software engineering?
-The speaker thinks AI will make software development more accessible, leading to a higher demand for quality in software solutions.
What is the importance of quality in software engineering according to the speaker?
-Quality is crucial because it will differentiate software in a market with many alternatives, and thoughtfully designed, well-implemented solutions will be the winners.
What advice does the speaker give to software engineers in a competitive market?
-The speaker advises software engineers to build real projects that solve real problems, to stand out by having a high bar of quality in their work.
Why should software engineers avoid building clones of popular tools?
-Building clones does not require deep thinking about use cases and design, which is essential for understanding and improving the software engineering process.
What is the speaker's recommendation for starting a software project?
-The speaker recommends starting with a personal or known problem, designing a solution that considers all use cases, and then building software to solve that problem effectively.
Why is building in public beneficial according to the speaker?
-Building in public allows for community engagement, feedback, and connections with similar people, which can lead to real users and learning opportunities.
How can having real users improve a software engineer's work?
-Having real users provides different perspectives, reveals bugs, and offers insights into user experience, which can drive optimization and improvement.
What is the ultimate goal of building software according to the speaker?
-The ultimate goal is to solve problems and make the world better, with the potential for users to pay for solutions that address their real pain points.
Why does the speaker encourage building multiple startups?
-Building multiple startups can lead to real users, paying customers, and a sustainable business model, which is more valuable than a salary.
What is the speaker's suggestion for dealing with new problems encountered during software development?
-The speaker suggests that new problems encountered during development can lead to the creation of new tools or services, which can be a path to innovation and business opportunities.
Outlines
🔮 The Future of Software Engineering
The speaker begins by setting the stage for a discussion about the future of software engineering, emphasizing its dual nature as both an art and a craft. They highlight the need for technical expertise and creativity in solving complex problems and creating elegant user interfaces. The speaker predicts that with AI making software development more accessible, the quality of software engineering will become even more critical. They advise aspiring software engineers to focus on building high-quality, thoughtfully designed solutions that stand out in a competitive market. The speaker also encourages building real projects that solve real problems and engaging with communities to gain feedback and improve the software, ultimately leading to a better understanding of software engineering and the potential to monetize solutions.
🚀 Building Startups and Solving Real Problems
In the second paragraph, the speaker encourages listeners to think about building multiple startups across different markets, aiming for real users and paying customers. They acknowledge the initial difficulty in identifying and solving problems but suggest leveraging resources like Twitter and engaging with communities to learn from others. The speaker emphasizes the importance of focusing on one feature and solving it well, which can lead to a valuable product. They share personal experiences, such as creating a simple logging solution that led to the idea of a more generalized service. The speaker also suggests considering open-source alternatives to paid software as a starting point for building projects. The ultimate goal is to create a sustainable business with recurring revenue, and the speaker motivates the audience to share their ideas and start building, as the world belongs to builders.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Software Engineering
💡Art and Craft
💡AI
💡Quality
💡Problem Solving
💡User Experience (UX)
💡Clone Projects
💡Build in Public
💡Real Users
💡Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)
💡Indie Hackers
Highlights
Software engineering is both an art and a craft, requiring technical expertise and creativity.
The future of software engineering will see a blend of art and craft, with AI making software development more accessible.
The quality of software engineering will become even more critical as AI enables more people to build software.
The best software solutions will be those that are thoughtfully designed and well implemented.
To stand out as a software engineer, one must build real projects that solve real problems.
Building clones of popular tools is not recommended; instead, focus on unique projects.
When building software, consider every use case and button behavior to ensure depth in design and functionality.
Engage with a community of builders to learn, share, and get feedback on your projects.
Aim to get real users for your software to learn from their perspectives and improve your product.
Real users will help identify bugs and areas for improvement in user experience.
The end goal of building software is to solve problems and make the world better.
Having real users and solving real problems can lead to paid software services.
Building real projects can also help in getting a job or starting your own startup.
It's important to start with a problem and design a solution that considers all use cases.
Discussing and sharing your projects publicly can lead to collaboration and user acquisition.
Building software that simplifies complex problems can lead to new business opportunities.
The process of building real solutions can uncover new problems and opportunities for innovation.
Open-source software can be a stepping stone to building a community and potentially a business.
The world belongs to builders, and there's a plethora of software waiting to be created.
Transcripts
[Music]
what's up you guys I'm back with another
video and in today's video we're going
to talk about the future of software
engineering and how I believe the role
is going to evolve in the coming years
so let's get started all right before we
talk about the future let's talk about
what software engineering really is like
what does it mean to you well to me it's
both an art and a craft it's a craft in
the sense that it demands technical
expertise precision and a Relentless
pursuit of Excellence we write code to
solve a problem we fix the bugs and keep
making it better through updates but
software engineering is also very much
an art form it requires creativity
Innovation and the ability to design
elegant solutions to complex problems
when we design user interfaces or
architecting systems we're not just
following a rule book we are creating
inventing and pushing boundaries think
about it the best software isn't just
functional it's also beautiful and
invokes an emotion in the user's
experience this is why the best tools
and apps that we use on a daily basis
have a beautifully designed user
interface and a delightful user
experience well now that we have
established that Baseline let's talk
about where we going I believe that this
dual nature of software engineering the
art and craft form is going to blend
even more in the coming future as AI
makes it more accessible more people can
build more software it's going to be
very important to raise the bar of the
quality of these Solutions I believe
that yes you will have hundreds of
alternatives for every app or every
problem that you want to solve the
winner in each category is going to be
the most thoughtfully designed and most
well implemented quality Solutions so in
this world the quality of software
engineering becomes even more important
because yes today you can use AI like
cursor and Claude to build like a very
good demo with a very good initial
starting point of an application but
when you launch it you will see how much
it lacks the depth the depth of thinking
the depth of Designing it and like
there's just too many use cases to
consider so what do you do about it if
you want to be a software engineer in
this highly competitive market you have
to stand out you have to have this High
bar of quality in the product that you
build this is your craft and you have to
be a master of the craft so my
recommendation is to shift your mindset
instead of building clones of popular
tools like Netflix clone and YouTube
clone and stuff like this build real
projects build real projects that solve
real problems and when you're building
these things right what will happen is
you'll start to see how much you have to
think about every single use case every
single button and how it behaves and
what it does when you build a simple
clone project you look at it like okay
my project is looking kind of like
YouTube and it has these video tiles and
stuff but you don't know what's broken
you don't know what's not working you
don't know where the bugs are you don't
know if that's the right use of it you
know so I would suggest like let's start
with a problem right think about a
problem that you personally face or
somebody you know faces in their daily
lives and then we will think about how
we will solve this problem with software
once you put in this thought you design
a solution which is like which considers
all these use cases in mind and then you
make a software that solves this problem
that makes it easy for the person it
solves their pain points and that's when
you really get the essence of software
engineering so I would suggest that
start with a problem think about the
problems that you face or talk to people
like talk to marketers and designers and
even developers like there's so many
problems so many frustrating things we
face while building so when you start
building solutions for these that's when
you will build real projects and you can
build these real projects in public
right if you if you go to Twitter
there's a vibrant build-in public
Community you can participate in this
community talk about what you're
building and just build connections with
similar people who are in similar
Journeys in the end what's going to
happen is you're going to get users your
goal should be to get real users for
your software and that's when you will
start to learn a lot more because
different users will see your software
from different perspectives you might be
you know tunnel vision into believing
that what you've built is beautiful and
the best piece of software in the world
but when other people start using it you
will start seeing the gaps you will
start seeing how other people perceive
it like what you believe a button should
do might not be what is the natural
intuition of another user so when you
start having real users you will start
noticing bugs you will start noticing
how you can optimize and improve your
user experience and that's when you're
getting into the real mindset of a
software engineer and when you have real
users and you're solving a real problem
for them trust me they will be more than
happy to pay you for it this is is the
Turning Point guys this is what I want
you to understand the end goal of
building software is to solve problems
to make the world better so that's what
you should keep in mind when working on
your next project once you have these
real users and you're solving a real
paino for them I'm sure they will be
happy to pay you for it well in the
worst case you can use these projects to
talk to other companies about look this
is what I've built this is similar to
what you guys are building and I love
working on this problem space it can
help you get a job at the very least but
in the best case scenario you have built
your own startup this is what I want to
really push I want us all to build
multiple startups in different
categories and in different markets and
I want us to take it forward all the way
to having real users and real paying
customers and growing it as a startup
because trust me Mr or monthly recurring
revenue is much better than salary it's
a lot more sustainable and it's a lot
more valuable having said that I know
that in the beginning it might seem hard
to come up with these problems and to
come up with the solutions to these
problems that's why you have me and you
have the internet you know start using
Twitter and getting involved in these
discussions start engaging with people
who are building start following the
people who are building there's a whole
Indie hackers building public Community
they're all building useful softwares
and what they're doing is basically
taking these big companies like big SAS
companies of Silicon Valley and they are
taking their most used features or most
painful features and they're building a
new product just based on one feature if
you solve one feature really well and
that one feature adds value to a
business they're going to pay you for it
and this is going to be going deep into
one problem space like I can show you a
lot of examples if you want me to make a
video about what kind of startups people
are building and what kind of startups
you can build let me know in the
comments down below and I'll start
working on it but for this one I just
want to give you a highle mindset of how
to think about problems and how to start
thinking about building software and how
to get into the real software
engineering world and another important
but underrated thing is when you start
working on these real projects and you
start rolling it out to customers and
deploying it and launching it you will
start seeing so so many new problems so
many frustrations like oh you know like
why is it so hard to do this why do I
have to waste so much time to do this
little thing maybe I can build a
software to simplify this because trust
me these are the real problems that real
people face like for example when I was
building Philly I noticed this problem
that okay I need to get logs right I
need to when I'm building it in
development I see all the logs on my
terminal or on my console when it's
running in production it's hard to get
those logs surface back to you there's a
lot of solutions like Sentry for error
reporting there's paper tril better
stack there's a lot of solutions that
people have built for logging but I
wanted something really really simple
that I can customize and use just for
myself and what I came up with was a
simple telegram based solution so like
the logging from the front end goes to a
cloudflare worker and it gets routed to
a telegram which that telegram texts me
that hey there's this problem and then I
can easily go and fix it right but this
took some time I had to go and register
for a telegram API I have to go create a
bot and then move these tokens and set
up an API endpoint in this moment I had
this idea maybe I could build a simple
service that somebody can just come in
and create a telegram bot with one click
and Route it to wherever they want it
and then they have the simple telegram
based logger which is easy to use and
it's free because telegram is free so
you know like you could sell the
solution easily for I don't know $15 $20
a month or you could sell it for a
lifetime value whatever works for you
but this is just one of these examples
right as you start working on these real
problems and building real solutions you
will run into so many more problems that
everybody runs into and building a good
userfriendly solution to these problems
is what's going to take you to the next
level that's how you should be thinking
about it and like I said in the worst
case you can start talking about what
you're building online and start maybe
sharing it as an open source tool
there's a huge movement on Twitter going
on right now where people are building
open- Source alternatives to popular
paid SAS software and this is a great
way to start as well maybe you like some
software which is a paid size
subscription software you can build a
simpler open source version of it and
you will start seeing so many people
support you and so many people join
together in this and in the worst case
scenario it will lead you to your next
job but that shouldn't be your goal that
should be your plan B plan a is to
convert this into a real business into a
real startup with real monthly recording
Revenue that's what I would suggest and
that's why I would recommend building
because I believe the world belongs to
builders and we are just getting started
there's so much more software to build
in this world and we are going to be the
ones building this so let me know what
you're going to build in the comments
down below and if you don't have ideas
let me know that in the comments as well
so I can start thinking about how I can
start sharing a lot more ideas with you
because this is me I get new ideas every
single day doing normal things now I
have so many ideas for so many software
tools that I can build but I don't have
the time but I'm happy to share this
with you guys and I'm hoping that you
can build this and one day you can have
your own company and hopefully I can
contribute a little bit into it as well
well that's it for this video I hope you
like this one and I'll see you on the
next one
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