Is It a Good Time to Be a Software Engineer?
AI may be rewriting the rules of software development, but it hasn’t erased the thrill of being a programmer. If anything, the machines have revitalised the joy of coding. New tools make it possible to code in natural language, ship prototypes in hours, and bypass tedious setup work. From solo developers to students, the process may feel more immediate or rewarding. Yet, this sense of optimism exists alongside an undercurrent of anxiety. As large language models (LLMs) begin to automate vast swathes of development, some have begun to wonder if software engineering is still a career worth betting on. Encouragingly, many influential voices continue to speak on the long-term opportunities. Even so, there is a clear need for more perspective and clarity on what lies ahead. More Code, More Coders, More Joy Todd McKinnon, CEO of Okta, finds the panic around engineering jobs “laughable”. In an interview with Business Insider, McKinnon said, “In five years, there will be more software engineers than there are now.” He believes AI will play the same role that personal computers and smartphones once did: expanding what developers can build, not replacing them. According to him, companies like Microsoft and Meta will still need thousands of engineers to build on top of AI-driven infrastructure. Speaking of Meta, the company is investing billions of dollars to hire top AI researchers. For those currently working in AI research, opportunities like this could prove incredibly useful. Andrew Ng, founder of DeepLearning.AI, echoed a similar sentiment on X. In response to warnings claiming coding will become obsolete, he said such advice is “some of the worst career advice ever given”. He argued that, as coding becomes easier, more people should learn how to code, not fewer. Drawing parallels to past transitions, from punch cards to terminals and C to Python, Andrew believes AI-assisted coding is the next natural step in making software more accessible and expressive. Meanwhile, Logan Thorneloe, a software engineer at Google, sees this as a golden era for developers. “Right now is the absolute best time to be a software engineer,” he wrote on LinkedIn. He points out “development velocity” as the reason. Thorneleo believes AI is accelerating workflows, shrinking prototype cycles from months to days, and giving developers unprecedented speed. Companies that adapt to this shift will win, not by eliminating engineers, but by empowering them. More than speed, there’s also a rediscovered sense of fun. Programmers who once wrestled with broken documentation and endless boilerplate are rediscovering the creative satisfaction that first drew them to the field. “AI didn’t make me lazy,” Namanyay Goel, founder of Giga AI, told AIM. “It made me focus on what actually matters.” AI Leaders and Industry With a Different Opinion The leading personalities behind some AI companies have shared different opinions. While they might have pushed the sentiment for their benefit, the stats can be somewhat confusing. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, while speaking on Stratechery with Ben Thompson, said, “Each software engineer will just do much, much more for a while…And then at some point, maybe we will need fewer software engineers.” Despite his thoughts painting an alarming thought, he emphasised that this may not mean the end of engineering. Altman also noted that some companies are already generating over half their code through AI. Alarm bells really went off when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicted that in less than six months, AI would handle 90% of coding. This is similar to what Sridhar Vembu, founder of Zoho, thinks. Recently, he said that 90% of what programmers write today is ‘boilerplate’. Gergely Orosz, creator of The Pragmatic Engineer newsletter, mentioned in a blog post that software engineering job openings have hit a five-year low globally, with a 35% decrease in vacancies compared to January 2020. According to Indeed data, there are 3.5 times fewer openings than the mid-2022 peak. This downturn is primarily attributed to the end of the zero-interest rate period, which impacted VC funding and overall tech hiring. Other factors like over-recruitment during the pandemic, a “wait and see” approach regarding AI’s impact on productivity, and the increasing efficiency of smaller engineering teams also contribute. So, To Be a Software Engineer or Not? In a Substack post, a developer mentioned, “This is a little more grim, but really, we still have a hell of a lot of software problems to solve. Once they’re all solved, we probably won’t have any job that AI can’t do better.” So, should one still aspire to be a software engineer? The answer may lie in how one views change. If the goal is to do routine work, the path may be narrowing. But for those who see engineering as a craft, shaped by tools but not replaced by them, the horizon remains wide open. AI may take over some typing, but the thinking, building, and curiosity still belong to humans. For now, and likely for a long while, it’s not about whether engineers will survive, but what they’ll choose to build next.
“Right now is the absolute best time.”
AI may be rewriting the rules of software development, but it hasn’t erased the thrill of being a programmer.
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I am a tech aficionado and a computer science graduate with a keen interest in AI, Coding, Open Source, and Cloud. Have a tip? Reach out to ankush.das@aimmediahouse.com