I love this optimism but I after a (too) long career I think that 3rd thing will win out - "how we do new things - but cheaper (or as cheap as possible)" there are sooooo many different articles that have been discussed here on HN that basically argue "coding has never been the bottleneck" which to me is the biggest lie SWEs are currently trying to tell themselves, I have been coding 30+ years now and coding has always been the bottleneck. hiring new developers has always been justified with "we have all this work that needs to be done and not enough people to get the work done." with llms in the fold, I am questioning how will these decisions be made in the future? perhaps in the most simplistic view:

1. run a bigger "agent army"

2. hire more people to control and guide the existing "agent army"

I think it'll be #1 and SWEs will be expected to do more work and work longer hours in the future (those that are able to keep their jobs). this is more pessimistic outlook than yours so I hope you are right more than I am :)

edit: just now on the HN front page: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/08/technology/meta-ai-employ...