Devin: A Tool, Not a Substitute for Your Job

In the past couple of weeks, there's been a lot of talk about AI replacing software engineers as speculated from known figures. While I find these statements laughable, it's also important to address these concerns here just as I did via email to a thriving community of aspiring Python developers who are worried about the future. Since this platform remains a haven for aspiring tech enthusiasts, I believe it's also important to drop my 2 cents here.

While a lot of work and resources are being put into programs that ensure the tech industry is more inclusive in offering more accessible pathways to becoming a software engineers, I find it distasteful that the marketing campaign strategy of an emerging company is in the dismissal of an entire industry, goes to tell a lot about the company. Well, in plain and simple text AI is in no way replacing software engineers anytime, AI tools like Devin are nothing but tools, the choice to use it or not to rely solely on several decisions.

AI is still arguably a decade away from having anything revolutionary, folks like Jensen Huang who hasn’t written a single line of code in recent years sometimes use these buzzwords to either attract more investments or maybe truly some actually do lack the understanding of how these tools operate, anyone who has built anything substantial knows that feeding an AI tool like Devin with vital information about your application is a call for disaster.

While I think Devin is a fantastic tool and if built correctly will impact the way software engineers work, I find their marketing mantra quite sh!tty, Devin like every other software tool is to optimize the performance of developers just like Xcode or Pycharm, Copilot...; I can choose to build an app using notepad ++ (a dumb idea tho 😂 ) instead of VS code, the emphasis is that these are just merely tools which developers can familiarize with when you have solidified an understanding on the fundamentals of your desired tech stack.

A simple search about Devin reveals two important things: One, Devin is built on GPT4, If you frequently use these tools you would have noticed that even the best of them hallucinate, these companies just show the working demos when in reality it’s a war dealing with these hallucinations from these tools. Two, Isn’t it quite ironic that Devin is in their recruitment for the positions of software engineer which is laughable, I mean if you’ve built a tool to replace software engineers why are there still openings for those job roles?

Lastly, while I think AI tools are the new cool and here to stay and not to replace the job of a software engineer, if there’s going to be any replacement it'll be the boring and mundane things of being a software engineer and not your job, again learn the very fundamental and basics of your tech stack and then proceed to learning these tools, block out all the noise and focus on building your career.

SO to everyone building something worthwhile making humanity better through inclusivity. And to every aspiring tech enthusiast, keep learning and building! ❤️

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