Comment by kode95 14 hours ago
I found this interesting: "Still, despite all the hype about how AI coding tools will replace software engineers, software engineering is still one of the most secure jobs you can have today, relative to most other white-collar jobs."
It's funny, almost every conversation I have about the fact that I work as a software engineer with new people I meet nowadays seems to include them asking if I'm worried about AI stealing my job. Maybe it's something that people ask everyone nowadays regardless of what industry they work in, but at least as far as I can tell, the type of work I do doesn't seem in any apparent danger of being replaced by AI any time soon.
I assume that they think SWEs have a better grasp on it than non-tech folk.
as of today that's probably true, but if the labs manage to keep increasing the 50% time horizon (defined by METR as 'the length of tasks (measured by how long they take human professionals) that it can complete autonomously with 50% probability') at the current pace, it might not be for long. Exponentials are hard enough to forecast if you kinda sorta know the parameters, and we don't have that comfort today.
It's because journalists are still big mad that the internet wrecked the newspaper business, therefore the news constantly reports lies about how the tech industry is collapsing. The more news you watch and the less personal contact you have with the industry, the more likely you are to believe that techies are jumping out of office windows in despair (hi, Mom).
The job market is terrible, pay is stagnate and remote work is being taken away and the biggest companies despite profits are laying off large amounts of people. I don't think that's fud
This makes sense to me.
Until Software Engineers have automated away all the other jobs with AI & software they'll be safe. That's going to take a long time.
Replacing software engineers with AI only affects the bottom line of software companies. Companies are usually fine with increasing the bottom line if they can exponentially increase the top line. I think software engineers will provide that capability for at least the next 10-15 years.
I think that's an over-simplistic view - at the moment there are many, many software engineers hired by companies who are betting on AI being madly profitable. If those expectations change, we could see more cascading layoffs, which will mean those engineers will go looking at more traditional places like banks, which means they'll stop hiring, which means it'll be harder to someone who is looking for a new job to find one, even though not all jobs have yet been automated.
True, besides actual software engineering is small part of overall IT/computer related work. There are far more analysts, managers(project, program, IT, agile etc), QA, operations and so on. So engineers who employers think are capable of leveraging AI and do 20 s/w engineer worth of work with 5 people will remain in demand for time being.
Even without outright layoffs one can see how fast leverage of average IT engineer is disappearing. After 20 years of experience my value or feedback matters less than when I was 4 years into paid job. And it has far less to with AI so far.
Most custom work of past is just a library, component or framework to use. And those are mandated to be used as it much easier to hire/replace teams to work on those.
Now It may be always be true to have reusable components created but growth of IT industry kept people employed in ever greater numbers. However now it seems to be reaching limit. Leaving aside highly visible layoffs by US tech giants, growth is fading in countries like India with huge IT offshoring workforce. There are millions upon millions jobless fresh graduates waiting to get jobs with some IT degree.
"There are millions upon millions jobless fresh graduates waiting to get jobs with some IT degree".
Quality of those graduates is not always great. A talented and passionate SWE will always make a good living.
> LLM coding is really not in the most abstract sense any different from compiling a higher level language to a lower level language.
Hard disagree here. Anecdotally, know a few people who can't write a Java program that will compile, who can leverage ChatGPT to produce functional websites.
A good friend of mine ChatGPTed his way into a masters degree that involved a lot of coding. A good 97% of his degree was done by AI, and the other 3% was me helping him troubleshoot he couldn't get AI to solve.
LLM is vastly different from a compiler/translator. Despite the joke, you can't just fire up Python with import website and have a functional website. But you can basically do that with LLMs, which will then add features as requested. It's not perfect, nor guaranteed to be functional, but it is quite a bit more capable than a compiler is for such tasks.
At my work, the sales guys are using AI tools to rapidly prototype features on our website with prospects. While it doesn't do all the work, it can produce useful HTML templates that the front-end team can make functional.
Certainly the jobs that were around for bespoke compilers were eliminated with the unification of compilers (GCC, Microsoft Visual C++). How many of those people transitioned to other roles I don't know. But the number of compiler jobs has been declining forever at this point.
At the end of the day, "AI" is just another programming language, albeit one that is much more accessible to the layman. When using AI, you become a software engineer. So it stands to reason that software engineering jobs are strong.
But what about pay? Elevator operator jobs have never been more prevalent, but increased accessibility to the layman pushed the price to zero.
> When using AI, you become a software engineer.
When using a pen you become a poet ? lol
Most people who code aren't software engineers, you certainly can't extend the definition to every AI users
> When using a pen you become a poet ?
No. By definition, a poet writes poems. Not all pen use leads to poems.
By definition, engineers build systems. What else can you do with code (and LLMs; same thing) other than build systems?
idk man, plenty of people have "ai" gf/bf/therapist, ask "ai" for vacation trip ideas, recipes, gym workouts, &c. I wouldn't even be surprised if most tokens were used on non software engineering tasks.
I have a zombie developer, coder, idk how to call them, in my team who doesn't talk to anyone, writes shit tier PRs and spends all day long talking to chatgpt. They're a prompter, a chatter, a waste of money, but certainly not an engineer
You can make a lot of slop of all different sorts with LLMs. That has very little in common with building systems.
In mechanical engineering you can be an engineer or a mechanic, or other things (like a hobbies or different degrees of casual work), and they're no interchangeable.
I think being an engineer implies it's a profession you've trained in and you're implementing the science behind it in a practical manor in some capacity (like a computer scientist studies computers, a computer engineer implements and builds the systems based upon this science).
> In mechanical engineering you can be an engineer or a mechanic, or other things
Sure. While some mechanics may sometimes find themselves having to design things to carry out their work (in which case they would be engineers during that time), generally speaking mechanics carry out the physical replacement of what engineers have already designed. They are not designing things themselves.
But there is no mechanic analog in computing. At least there isn't a human mechanic analog. One is always operating at the design level, regardless of whether the design is written in C, Rust, or natural language. All the engineering-adjacent work you find in other engineering disciplines is done by the computer in the software realm.
> I think being an engineer implies it's a profession you've trained in and you're implementing the science behind it in a practical manor in some capacity
That's what "professional engineer" implies, but we're talking about "engineer". There is no such connotations in the word engineer alone, hence the existence of the PE term.
> When using AI, you become a software engineer.
No. You do not. It may make you a developer, at best. I don't even call my self a software engineer, because I'm not. I'm a self taught coder that has spent 25+ years gaining experience, but I've never graduated from a school with any kind on engineering degree. I started CSE way back in the 90s, but stopped because life got in the way.
Maybe you're joking, but you just know people actually feel this way. They have no idea the difference of a coder and an SWE, and flippant comments don't help
> but I've never graduated from a school with any kind on engineering degree.
So? Per the dictionary, engineer is clearly defined as: A person who designs, builds, or maintains machines, structures, or systems. There is no mention of school or having an engineering degree.
It has always been a bit debatable if software fits into machine, structure, or system, granted, but we generally have come to agree that it does. And per the context of discussion, we've already established that it does for the sake of discussion. On that understanding, designing/building/maintaining a system in "LLM code" instead of C++ code is fundamentally no different.
You're likely confusing engineer with Professional Engineer™, but that's something else entirely. That obviously has nothing to do with anything that we're talking about here.
> VR flight simulator software is accessible to the layman. Does that make them qualified to be a captain (pilot-in-command) for a commercial passenger plane?
No. They might be able to fly a plane poorly, though. Engineer doesn't imply being qualified, only engaging in the act of designing, building, or maintaining a machine, structure, or system. You don't have to be qualified, or even be good at it, to carry out those acts.
You're probably thinking of Professional Engineer™, which does represent recognized qualifications, but that's something completely different. Obviously if Professional Engineer™ was meant, Professional Engineer™ would have been written.
Huh, Pilot/ Captain job requirement for commercial plane is highly regulated by authorities like FAA etc but software engineer has no such requirement. Any random business with some basic software requirement can ask an employee or contractor to get something developed quickly and deployed it. They may start calling that person software engineer.
Further even if you have some strict ACM/IEEE definition of Software Engineer®, a person is not going to end up in jail if they don't fulfill those but call themselves software engineer nonetheless.
> Huh, Pilot/ Captain job requirement for commercial plane is highly regulated by authorities like FAA etc but software engineer has no such requirement. ny random business with some basic software requirement can ask an employee or contractor to get something developed quickly and deployed it. They may start calling that person software engineer.
Exactly the problem. Secondly, if I am building commercial plane software for pilots to use, you wouldn't want to hire unqualified / in-experienced 'engineers' for all the critical work and validation testing. (or even AI vibe-coders picked from anywhere.)
Because surely, that worked out for Boeing. [0] /s
> Further even if you have some strict ACM/IEEE definition of Software Engineer®, a person is not going to end up in jail if they don't fulfill those but call themselves software engineer nonetheless.
So we are now defending fraud if one calls themselves an SWE on their CV with zero experience other than an AI doing all the coding?
It's like you want to take the legal risk hoping that the employer / company won't sue you for fraud when that vibe-coded software goes all wrong and money is lost.
[0] https://www.industryweek.com/supply-chain/article/22027840/b...
There is a lot of induced demand in software engineering. We are still in the realm where cheaper software means that people want more and more complex software. And that demand increase is more than enough to offset any efficiency increases
Meanwhile the amount of accounting that has to be done is pretty inelastic. Whenever accounting gets more efficient you just reduce the number of accountants instead of doing more accounting
Creative is somewhere in between. Not completely static demand, but not extremely elastic either. The healthy rise in postings for creative directors indicates that the cost reduction has lead to more art being done, but the increase in demand isn't big enough to offset the job losses in the rank and file positions