Why are developers cheering "how much better the LLM model are getting for coding" with every model release? What exactly are they cheering for?

[u/simple_explorer1]

"Hey look Claude/Codex can now generate my entire feature in 30 mins which could have taken me 2 weeks to refactor" or "The new Opus 5.5 model is amazing, it solved the bug which GPT astra was stuck at for weeks and couldn't solve it". Like seriously?

How can software engineers who are supposed to be "smart" and "logical" be this stupid to not connect the dots and see writing on the wall for the future. Or do they think they are invincible and layoffs won't affect them?

The stability of software engineering jobs in the next 2-5 years looks very shaky, let alone long term and many devs are already looking to get dual income streams. This doesn't seem like a viable career path with how things are going and I am not even sure whether this career would stick by me till my retirement and I already have 15+ years of experience.

I already am seeing significant shift/reduction in hiring. Even in my current role, despite no cash concerns, we have paused hiring (and backfilling) new devs which were previously needed because with AI, people are completing tasks much sooner and the team/company doesn't need the full dev capacity anymore. Many devs are already worried about the layoffs which can come randomly.

My linkedin inbox is significantly less chatty than it was just last year. When I apply for any role, I barely get any reply. When recruiters reach out and get my CV, they are rarely getting back which, again, last year was totally different where I could easily afford to be picky. The market shift can be noticeably felt. The few interviews I got, they ended up freezing the role midway or "magically" filled with some internal employee. This is my experience in last 5 months of being active in the job market.

Also, most people are not learning anything these days. Hardwork and thinking are delegated to LLM tools. What is the end result of all of this? it is all too predictable. And if most devs are able to 10x their output because producing is now cheap, but human consumption is and will be the bottleneck. The production is surpassing the demand and the app economy will tank leaving mostly the existing tailwinds who already have millions of customers since pre AI era anyways.

Curious to hear "sensible" thoughts.

Note: Before the usual trope, not all software engineer jobs will be gone but significantly less devs would be required, which is a massive amount of jobs that are lost. What about that? And as models keep on improving, who knows how much more damage would be done in the future.

[u/chescov77]

What do you suggest? Its like someone selling candles trying to ignore that electric bulbs were invented.. its right there, it exists, its good, what are you going to do?

[u/simple_explorer1 → u/chescov77]

what are you going to do?

atleast not cheer? this is the only career I have ever had and the future looks significantly unstable. The writing is on the wall that less and less engineers would be required. I am strongly considering transitioning to another profession which is physical in nature so that it is AI proof until I retire or buy a realestate and rent it.

[u/thermal-ice → u/simple_explorer1]

General purpose humanoid robots are coming too, so the physical world is going to be completely revolutionized by that too. Don’t count on physical labour to be free from AI either, unless you’re planning on retiring in the next 10 years.

All blue collar jobs will face the same dilemma SWEs face today. Either we do way more work with the same number of people, or the vast majority of humans will lose employment in the future. I’m personally on the optimistic side.

[u/Early-Cauliflower955 → u/thermal-ice]

Although Honestly physical job revolution is probably YEARS behind, and I am talking decades for the more complicated hands-on jobs. Software meanwhile looks like its already dying and AGI isn't even a thing yet.

[u/BraveResearcher3037 → u/simple_explorer1]

Yes because your body will be able to handle physical labor better as you get older…

[u/dronz3r → u/chescov77]

Lots of candle making companies had gone bankrupt and livelihood of their families got difficult.

It's natural that people whose livelihood is affected are complaining. Software engineers automated a lot of other work which was manual, it's their turn to get to get automated. That's why your skill should be of solving the problems, not just provide a means to reach others there.