Will AI replace software engineers? How do you get a job when supply and demand have flipped? Is software even as lucrative as it once was? Join us for discussions on these topics and more.
Goto Loop is a podcast about building a career in software engineering. From university to staff engineer and beyond, Cory and Jk discuss what it's like to work in software today.
Industry experts discuss the resurgence of AI and its potential impact on software engineering jobs, examining perspectives from Austin Allred, Anthropic researchers, and Google's Chief AI Scientist.
25 Apr 2025
My Morning LLM Mech Suit
Cheat on everything and your degree means... nothing? Don't give into the extreme viewpoints, everything will be just fine.
Exploring technological disruptions, from cheating tools to AI's impact on education and software development.
Cluely's launch sparks ethical and legal debates about cheating in academic and professional settings.
49% of Gen Z feel college degrees are devalued as employers prioritize AI literacy over traditional qualifications.
LLMs boost coding speed in familiar frameworks but require human oversight for quality in complex projects.
Only 20% of seasoned Big Tech engineers embrace AI tools, with 30% considering leaving the industry.
How can we balance AI-driven progress with integrity and fairness?
20 Apr 2025
College Admissions
Our discussion moves to college admissions, where many surprising rejections have been recently coming through. Also, a new week, a new model with Llama 4 and people are seriously questioning AI progress.
Llama 4 (https://ai.meta.com/blog/llama-4-multimodal-intelligence/)
AI Progress Questioned (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4mvphwx5pdsZLMmpY/recent-ai-model-progress-feels-mostly-like-bullshit)
Analyzing the Housing Affordability Crisis for Engineers (https://www.reddit.com/r/Salary/comments/1jojlwa/engineers_dont_make_good_money_anymore_part_2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
The Overwhelming Complexity of Software Engineering (https://0x1.pt/2025/04/06/the-insanity-of-being-a-software-engineer/)
Cal AI founder rejections (https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/education/18-year-old-millionaire-ceo-of-ai-company-rejected-by-6-ivy-league-schools-4870460.html)
And corresponding tweet (https://x.com/zach_yadegari/status/1906859987105636667)
High-Achieving Student Rejected by Ivy League for CS, Accepted to UMass Amherst (https://x.com/deedydas/status/1906898551273337209)
College Admissions Competition (https://x.com/felpix_/status/1905502809916596376?s=12)
27 Mar 2025
Copium
In this one we chat about recent AI developments, including Gemini 2.5 and ChatGPT's image generation, along with a deep dive into one person's experience on the levels.fyi forum.
Gemini 2.5 pro is cooking? (https://simonwillison.net/2025/Mar/25/gemini/)
ChatGPT image generation (https://simonwillison.net/2025/Mar/25/gemini/)
Blocklists in the industry (https://www.businessinsider.com/how-block-lists-affect-your-job-search-and-career-advancement-2025-3)
Is the market just cooked for new grads? (https://www.levels.fyi/community/thread/9qYUTN/is-the-market-just-cooked-for-new-grads) (from levels.fyi (https://www.levels.fyi/community))
21 Mar 2025
Extreme Vibe Coding
Oops, we failed recording episode 6. This one worked! Vibe coding is the new hotness. Is it really the future? We talk about (more) CEOs declaring software careers dead early and why the AI takeover is not as clear cut as some would have you think.
Student using AI to cheat on interviews (https://www-cnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/03/09/google-ai-interview-coder-cheat.html)
WSJ says job hopping isn’t as lucrative as it once was (https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/salary-deflation-workers-new-jobs-0b2e1a1f)
Anthropic's CEO predicts AI will code 90% of software in 3-6 months, all in a year (https://www.businessinsider.com/anthropic-ceo-ai-90-percent-code-3-to-6-months-2025-3)
Bear case against AI taking over (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/oKAFFvaouKKEhbBPm/a-bear-case-my-predictions-regarding-ai-progress)
Sesame new voice assistant (https://www.sesame.com/research/crossing_the_uncanny_valley_of_voice#demo)
https://www.ultravox.ai/ (https://www.ultravox.ai/)
Karpathy coining the term "Vibe Coding" (https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383)
27 Feb 2025
The AI Job Economy
We are joined by our long time friend Westley, who shares his journey through defense tech with us. We discuss the onslaught of recent AI news and how everyone seems to have an opinion on AI replacing software engineers.
Show notes:
AI Model updates – Grok 3 benchmarks, Sonnet 3.7 and Claude Code (https://www.datacamp.com/blog/claude-3-7-sonnet)
OpenAI Roadmap (https://x.com/sama/status/1889755723078443244)
New companies from Ilya (https://x.com/amitisinvesting/status/1891598431459983689) & Mira Murati (https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/former-openai-technology-chief-mira-muratis-ai-startup-taps-top-researchers-2025-02-18/)
Junior Engineers can't code (https://nmn.gl/blog/ai-and-learning)
Analysis of Microsoft AI vs. critical thinking paper (https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_948da094-14da-4868-86f8-47ce69b7aea0)
Meta AI data center project (https://www.reuters.com/technology/meta-talks-200-billion-ai-data-center-project-information-reports-2025-02-26/)
Apple AI infra investments (https://www.ciodive.com/news/Apple-AI-infrastructure-investment/740786/#:~:text=from%20your%20inbox.-,Apple%20accelerates%20AI%20investment%20with%20%24500B%20for%20skills%2C%20infrastructure,build%20a%20server%20manufacturing%20hub.)
Covid SWE jobs vs HR (https://x.com/gergelyorosz/status/1889962250129318059)
Sahil on not hiring junior + mid-level eng (https://x.com/shl/status/1887484068075274347)
Anthropic Economic Index results (https://x.com/AnthropicAI/status/1888954168036987358)
Why is Everyone Trying to Replace Software Engineers? (https://toddle.dev/blog/why-is-everyone-trying-to-replace-software-engineers)
Silicon Valley Engineers Can't Find Jobs (https://futurism.com/silicon-valley-engineers-jobs)
Westley's company, Trillium (https://www.trilliumeng.com/company/careers) is hiring!
12 Feb 2025
Affirmations for Engineers
Today we invite our first guest, Adarsh, on the show! Adarsh is an MS student at Arizona state. He shares with us his experience with the upending of CS curriculum by AI tools, the challenges of getting past application tracking systems (ATSs), and a heartfelt set of affirmations for those on the hunt for their first job.
Show notes:
MSFT, Meta layoffs (https://x.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1888979764989309420)
Kimi AI (https://kimi.ai/) (China is cooking)
Dwarkesh –why hasn’t AI produced anything novel? (https://x.com/RichardHanania/status/1888623874621001998/photo/1)
Lex Fridman Deepseek episode ->university hiring (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-YbaSzDmhU&list=WL&index=2) and job loss
3 Feb 2025
The Zuckond Coming
Zuck is now king. Rogan, layoffs, and no more DEI. Plus the xAI app rocks and does OpenAI really have a moat?
Show notes:
No more Meta DEI (https://www.axios.com/2025/01/10/meta-dei-memo-employees-programs)
Zuck / Rogan pod: Summary of (https://x.com/FiveTimesAugust/status/1878482880994628001) Cory’s thoughts
Zuck banned trump from meta for 2 years, kind of pretending like he’s the good guy all along
Meta terminations : (https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/14/meta-targeting-lowest-performing-employees-in-latest-round-of-layoffs.html)“The terminations will be based on performance, per the memo from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said he's "decided to raise the bar" in preparation for "an intense year." Affected employees in the U.S. will be notified Feb. 10, and Meta plans to refill those roles within the year.”
xAI iPhone app review
Commoditization effect of AI (https://grok.com/share/78159d71-6ba1-459b-adc6-7b317ab7d9da)
Contrary - Bullish on hiring: https://x.com/alliekmiller/status/1877376690126495993?s=46 (https://x.com/alliekmiller/status/1877376690126495993?s=46)
https://x.com/svpino/status/1882482177373622289 (https://x.com/svpino/status/1882482177373622289)
8 Jan 2025
More Junior Dev Drama, @sama Says We're Near AGI? @zuck Fact Check, H1Bs
In this episode, we continue our discussion of junior folks in software. We also talk about current events around AGI, Mark Zuckerberg's fact checker announcement, and the X H1B debate.
Show notes:
Junior dev roles are disappearing (https://x.com/julianweisser/status/1870871057835679909?s=46&t=WxI040bG2OGvl1V7bEHARg)
Roon tells us we underestimate the future (https://x.com/tszzl/status/1871298513134608473?s=46&t=WxI040bG2OGvl1V7bEHARg )
@sama letter on AI (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/25/sam-altman-ai-democracy-authoritarianism-future/)
@sama 6 word story (https://x.com/sama/status/1875603249472139576)
Mark Zuckerberg's announcement (https://www.instagram.com/zuck/reel/DEhf2uTJUs0/)
Elon's initial H1B response ( https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1872860577057448306?lang=en)
And follow up (https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1873191959441084531 )
Vivek's response (https://x.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1872463033555161300 )
20 Dec 2024
Booting Up
Hello world. In this episode, Cory and Jk discuss the hiring environment for new software engineers today. Things have changed since AI tooling has entered the chat, and new engineers are having a harder time finding good jobs.
Show notes:
The tweet mentioned (https://x.com/ahmadaccino/status/1834412505335996754)
Another resource on the topic of whether the traditional junior engineer archetype is dead (https://sourcegraph.com/blog/the-death-of-the-junior-developer)
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Spotify
5.0 / 5
11 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 13 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
7
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
51
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