alt Hacker NewsI 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."
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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.
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.
what about amount of churn in software engineering?
Did the invention of compilers eliminate the need for programmers or make them more productive and valuable? LLM coding is really not in the most abstract sense any different from compiling a higher level language to a lower level language.
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.
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