Lots of people have jobs today thanks to high level languages that wouldn't have a job before them, they don't need to know how to manage memory manually.

Maybe that will happen for LLM programming as well, but I haven't seen many "vibe coder wanted" job ads yet that doesn't also require regular coding skills, so today LLM coding is just a supplementary skill its not a primary skill, so not like higher level languages since those let you skip a ton of steps.

> Did high-level languages and compilers make life better for working programmers

Yes.