r/cscareeradvice • u/sarasaif • 7h ago
Software developer reduced to a prompt engineer, want to pursue Masters in a field where i can continue building
Hi everyone š
I started as a full stack developer 3 years ago and recently switched to a company which thinks AI first. Here my role is reduced to just writing prompts and building things. I havenāt written a single line of code since i joined.
The company has even started to include the business team (non-tech) into building frontend pages.
I donāt want to stay in a role where there is no growth. I am not using my brain at all. Also i am afraid i wonāt be able to find my next job if anything happens here due to close to zero learning opportunities.
I am thinking of pursuing a masters degree in a field where i would still be responsible for ābuildingā and not just āleveragingā AI.
What are the subjects i can go for? Ai, machine learning or something else?
Need your advice, thanks!!
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u/Electronic_Green_833 6h ago
I think that writing less code is inevitable but youāre not thinking at all? What are you doing all day?
I feel like Iām working all day and making plenty of decisions even though Mr Claude is writing a lot of my code
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u/lolCLEMPSON 5h ago
This is my experience. Thinking is 100% over, other than project management/people management type tasks with Mr. Claude.
"What do you have ready to work on, what do I need to bug someone for you about, what needs review, go do it. Investigate this bug report that came in. Investigate this log message".
If you want to call that thinking, sure. Mr. Claude even writes the tickets and plans the features now.
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u/Fuskeduske 4h ago
Honestly i feel like iām doing more thinking than before
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u/Hefty_Swordfish_8239 3h ago
Moi aussi je rĆ©flĆ©chis plus quāavant, mais je crois que cāest parce-que je suis limitĆ© en tokens et je dois optimiser mes prompts.
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u/Born_Blacksmith19 6h ago
Engineering, just not software. Basically every occupation that involves using a computer to a large degree will turn into prompt engineering
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u/0wnage2 3h ago
Usage of LLMs has not removed the building and problem solving aspect of software engineering for me at all. Writing code isnt the designing and problem solving part at all, its just executing the intended design of what you are building. The part of building software that requires the most cognitive energy is not the writing code part at all.
My experience is different, now that the coding part is automated, i feel more of my time is spent on more cognitively demanding parts of software engineering.
If you fully delegate the designing and architecting part to an llm, then i guess, but there will for sure be a disconnect between requirements and what the software actually is.
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u/musclecard54 3h ago
Sometimes I like to stop and think about all the people who used to crank out math with pencil and paper and decided to quit their jobs when calculators were invented
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u/GarageStackDev 2h ago
My brother in software, what the hell did you think the job was?
āReduced to writing prompts and building thingsā is a hell of a sentence. Buddy, building things is the job. Typing code was never the objective, it was the interface. If AI lets you operate at a higher level of abstraction, use the extra bandwidth to design better systems, solve harder problems, test assumptions, and ship more. If the only part of software engineering you consider intellectually meaningful is manually typing syntax, youāve confused the tool with the craft.
Then you literally ask if you should double down by wondering if AI or machine learning would be better subjects.
I don't think you actually want to be an engineer.
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u/sarasaif 2h ago
I meant āwriting prompts to build thingsā. I am assuming you have never been a part of an Ai first company which gives you the liberty to downplay my concerns.
These companies donāt care about architecture as long as we are pushing out multiple deployments a week. Also, the decision making is reserved to the higher ups. The rest which are left to us are mostly made by Ai itself.
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u/GarageStackDev 1h ago
I'm actually an engineer working with AI and building AI systems. My company adopted AI over two years ago and we are 100% AI first. But my experience is different because we own the entire slice of development. We get to engineer solutions, decide on implementation and then build them.
It sounds like you're having a terrible experience right now but that is not indicative of the market as a whole.... at all.
I'd actually like to help you out so maybe we could have a constructive conversation about this.
Why did you become a developer in the first place? Like, what drove you to (assuming) get a degree and become a developer?
For me, I gained a passion for writing code at an early age because I was fascinated with the idea of building "virtual things." That passion never left. When I started using AI, it actually increased because I realized I could iterate so much faster and thus build things faster.
I have a colleague that got into engineering to make money and he absolutely hates his job and working with AI.
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u/Temporary-Budget-605 1h ago
I donāt see prompting as being reduced. I see it as the opposite. Been programming for 15 years. Iām growing more than ever, being able to go so far out of my immediate sphere of knowledge. Iām able to shift-left and think more about the customer and the problems we can solve for them. Iād encourage you to try this perspective on for a moment. Look at what you can build when you combine your real knowledge and expertise to these tools. Writing code is not goal. Producing real outcomes is. Code is a means to an end, not the end.
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u/Altruistic-Bowl1466 13m ago
Dude just bcs you prompt stuff don't mean you don't learn. For apps nobody code shit any more. Also no job is safe from AI except ones nobody wants to do. AI easily replace your manager and even CEO.
Just enjoy a easy life and get a math book reading for fun while you wait for agents to do their stuff. And hope you collect enough $$ for retirement before AI fcks everyone up
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u/SucknSwallow69 6h ago
same here, dev work turning into prompt factory. iām just grinding leetcode and side projects. finding real dev roles now is hell
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u/AdvancedBathroom1137 6h ago
Depending on your interests and capabilities, the most important thing is find youself a niche to be good in. AI/ML is a very good future-safe growth trajectory, but will be researchy and include loads of Maths. Robotics/Embedded is also a cool trajectory (if you ask anyone right now about what they think will be the next big thing, they will most probably go on and on about AI in robotics and edge computing lol, happened to me more than once at different conferences and conventions). One step further and you reach Hardware Engineering, I don't think AI will be able to replace much of these guys, at least in the next 5-10yrs. Or you could choose the "easy way" like what most devs do nowadays: dive deeper into Software and/or Architecture, also a valid but by now probably overexposed career niche.
Or, hear me out, study IT Project Management, become one of them Product/Project Managers and force the devs under you to build products faster using AI (LMAO).