I mean, we are creating a character, we can choose him some sort of edge to start with, something he is good at, no?
Without that you feel like average joe getting a change of job for mercenary.
We didn't see a skill options screen or role options screen in the character creator in the demo.
We've heard conflicting info on whether you choose a role at the begging as a starting point and then it's fluid, or if it's 100% fluid all the way. A few previews said something like:
"The role you choose at the start of the game define your initial strengths and weaknesses, but you can customi[z]e your abilities as your progress through the campaign, mixing elements from each archetype without restricting your role. So you may start life as a solo but become a mostly techie-based build by the game’s conclusion, or develop into a multi-talented hybrid who can do a little of everything."
https://www.pcgamesn.com/cyberpunk-2077/cyberpunk-2077-classes THIS IS FROM A GAMING JOURNALIST, NOT A DEV.
However, Kyle Rowley has said "Now at the start of the game we don't actually have any classes that you pick from," Rowley explained. "Obviously in Cyberpunk 2020 there's lots of different roles you can take on: corporate, rocker boy, netrunner, techie, etc. At the start of the game you're not picking any of those classes. As you're progressing through the game you're modifying and adjusting your class based on the attributes that you pick and decide to install. So it's a very fluid system, we don't lock you in at the start of the game."
Discussion about V's role and character creation starts around 2:20 into video. The actual quote above is around 3:20.
Miles Tost also talked about it here from start to around 1:55:
There's also a real good discussion about gameplay and how skills interplay with combat here:
Goes from about 5:10 to 9:25.
If forced to choose I'll go with the game devs statement over the statement of a couple media outlets which could just be confused. It could be we start as a blank slate at the start. It could be we get to level a few skills at the beginning either manually, or based on the lifepath and stats we've chosen. We really don't know yet how it works in detail based on the conflict in information.