We have seen similar things in other industries as well.
I had a chat with a friend and he said it very nicely: I have all instruments to build my own desk, but at the end I go and buy it. Even though there are tools to automate the implementation, and people can do it themselves, there still will be people who will need manual implementation. Banks, military, government projects, the level of security and confidentiality is so high, that they can't switch to AI at all.
I strongly believe that the work will drop, because less people will be needed, and the expected quality will be higher, because manual labor is expensive, but it will remain. Like in car manufacturing. You buy a car and pay for it, but there are expensive hand-made cars that you can buy, and they are highly customized, with personal attitude toward the clients. Manual software implementation can go the same direction as hand-made cars.
And at the same time, professional woodworkers still exist, and people really hate on IKEA desks.
So I agree - the number of professional software engineers may decrease, but it isn't going away. And based on what I'm seeing in my consulting gigs, the senior folks won't ever be replaced - they may spend more time fixing slop than doing greenfield work, but the jobs will be there.
Increased rate of change inceases System complexity. And so you end up with more bugs not less. Look at your own body. A whole lot of it is not under your control and running on auto pilot. So why hasnt it gone full auto? Because full auto cant handle all the unpredictability in ze universe.
We have seen similar things in other industries as well. I had a chat with a friend and he said it very nicely: I have all instruments to build my own desk, but at the end I go and buy it. Even though there are tools to automate the implementation, and people can do it themselves, there still will be people who will need manual implementation. Banks, military, government projects, the level of security and confidentiality is so high, that they can't switch to AI at all.
I strongly believe that the work will drop, because less people will be needed, and the expected quality will be higher, because manual labor is expensive, but it will remain. Like in car manufacturing. You buy a car and pay for it, but there are expensive hand-made cars that you can buy, and they are highly customized, with personal attitude toward the clients. Manual software implementation can go the same direction as hand-made cars.
And at the same time, professional woodworkers still exist, and people really hate on IKEA desks.
So I agree - the number of professional software engineers may decrease, but it isn't going away. And based on what I'm seeing in my consulting gigs, the senior folks won't ever be replaced - they may spend more time fixing slop than doing greenfield work, but the jobs will be there.
Good point
Increased rate of change inceases System complexity. And so you end up with more bugs not less. Look at your own body. A whole lot of it is not under your control and running on auto pilot. So why hasnt it gone full auto? Because full auto cant handle all the unpredictability in ze universe.