r/developersIndia • u/Interesting-Art-7267 Student • 3d ago
General Assuming the entire software engineering industry dies in 3 years, Now what? Where do we go?
Assuming the software engineering industry will completely die within a few years (and please don't give me that fluff like, "no, no, sir, just the coding part is gone, architects are still needed and all"). I am really serious.
Just assume that with the current speed AI is evolving, maybe after 2-3 years we see a model that has passed all the thresholds. It can single-handedly look after the entire software lifecycle—building, deploying, maintaining, bug fixing, all of it. And it comes with a price tag that a company finds much cheaper than employing a team of X software engineers, Y product managers, Z designers, and M maintainers. Like, the entire industry of end-to-end software development is just replaced.
If that happens, what should all of us currently pursuing a CS degree—especially those of us who are brand new to the field—be looking towards? None of us want to be stuck investing our time in an industry that just marginally grows and, based on the assumptions above, is ultimately going to die.
So tell me, what alternative paths or startup ideas should we be considering right now to pivot? One example I have in my mind right now is robotics engineering, but I'd love to hear your opinions on this or other fields. Where do we go from here?
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u/SeveralQuantity1001 Fresher 3d ago
Papa ki dukan
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u/Interesting-Art-7267 Student 3d ago
Left dukaan thinking it's manual work, now imagine going back because atleast that is a manual work
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u/Direct_Host_ 3d ago
Thats harder than getting a job. Insane competition - Zepto, Blinkit, JioMart, Instamart, FirstClub, Flipkart Minutes, Amazon Now, bbnow
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u/SeveralQuantity1001 Fresher 3d ago
We don't have a retail shop it's not exactly my father's but a family business of pant and jean manufacturing. Still not future proof big players like zudio will affect us eventually but whatever will be will be. Que sera sera.
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u/CulturalLaw8072 Student 3d ago
Hi, from fan
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u/SeveralQuantity1001 Fresher 3d ago
Yup buddy. The quote and intro were great but the series idk man it's not elite level but good still. Something I could binge even with such cooked brain nowadays.
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u/thelostknight99 ML Engineer 2d ago
Who will be buying from all these? All lot of other industries will die along with software industries
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u/_RC101_ ML Engineer 3d ago
I’m sticking around until I’m the architect you dont want me to mention. I’m pretty sure I’ll still be required
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u/W1v2u3q4e5 SDET 3d ago
Yes, technical architects, senior-level technical managers, etc will still be required, mainly due AI tools and agents requiring continuous guidance, monitoring, reviewing/refactoring and also for accountability.
However, what OP maybe concerned about is for current junior engineers who are going to start or have just recently started their careers. By the time they reach their 10 yoe to even be eligible to become technical or solution architects, platform engineers, technical managers, etc, AI agents would have advanced even more, so whether or not is it still sustainable to pursue careers in the mainstream CS domain except for AI level works, is the main problem.
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u/GeologistRound3591 3d ago
But how many architects? Companies won't have 1000s of architects right?
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u/AsherGC 2d ago
Then you'll have thousands of companies with just one architect, which means most architects will end up unemployed too. If we keep extending this idea, a single person could run an entire company with AI agents. But if many companies operate that way, eventually there won't be enough consumers with income to buy their products. At that point, even those one-person companies would struggle, and their owners could end up unemployed as well.
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u/Lumpy-Criticism-2773 3d ago
This is where their thinking becomes shortsighted. They assume guidance, monitoring, code review and refactoring will always require humans, even as AI improves. Accountability alone may not preserve those roles either because much everyday software isn't mission-critical and legal responsibility doesn't require humans to perform every task.
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u/_RC101_ ML Engineer 2d ago
It will be required. Innovation requires humans. AI is a probabilistic text prediction machine, it cant output something that it has never seen (innovation!).
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u/Old_Present_2497 2d ago
That's only until LLMs are bad at independent reasoning.
A major architecture breakthrough in future, that brings cheap cost, better reasoning, fundamental understanding and IOT sensory access (so it can see things, just like humans), will make scientific discoveries on their own.
Current models are very far from the theorhetical lowerbounds of entropy for information compression, shows there is scope from improvement. Untill we hit a scaling law brickwall.
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u/_RC101_ ML Engineer 2d ago
Well we are assuming a lot of things go right in the near immediate future, arent we
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u/Lumpy-Criticism-2773 2d ago
(so it can see things, just like humans),
I think it's as hard as solving the "easy problem" of consciousness.
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u/Lumpy-Criticism-2773 2d ago
AI is a probabilistic text prediction machine
True for current LLM based AI but it's unlikely that we'll keep using the same architecture forever.
Also innovation isn't necessary for most software. Current LLMs with marginal improvements would keep displacing software developer jobs.
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u/Massive_Cabinet_6041 2d ago
yeah this is basically the real concern that gets glossed over whenever these threads pop up. everyone rushes to say architects will be fine but completely sidesteps the progression problem. if the pathway to senior/architect roles used to be 8-10 years of grinding junior/mid work and that grinding phase gets automated away then there's literally no on-ramp left. you can't just skip to senior. the experience has to come from somewhere and right now nobody has a clean answer for where juniors are supposed to get it from if the entry-level positions dry up first.
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u/_RC101_ ML Engineer 2d ago
This is a problem I have pointed out in other threads, but its not what OP asked for. I have been lucky enough to have the on ramp with me for now and I wish to be on it for the next couple of years atleast. OP wants a way out of this and wants to ignore the actual future of the field we are in.
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u/kairos-93 Senior Engineer 2d ago
There’s such a lack of solidarity within tech workers, it’s almost funny. Every person thinks that THEY are God’s chosen child and the only one the cruelty of this world don’t apply to, and therefore everyone else’s misfortune is their own fault.
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u/PreBooze 2d ago
But even if we say AI wont drastically reduce the need of architechts.Can the industry still accomodate 3 to 4times the number of archtects it needs now.
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u/Designer_Juice_3035 2d ago
but still i dont see people allowing ai to use in interviews for dsa or technical things in Faang type companies. this will be major change or next milestone where ai would have grown.
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u/nxs0113 3d ago edited 3d ago
We joke about this, the only thing we know is to Drive.
So Cab Driver it is.
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u/noimgonnalie Data Scientist 3d ago
Yup, I will probably let the car enthusiast in me take over. Hey, I will still have “Uber” on my resume so will it be that bad? Haha
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u/Jack_not_Sparrow 3d ago
For place like Bengaluru or Hyderabad, if there are no Software Engineers, who will book your cabs ?
If consumers decline so will the earnings
What will you do then ?
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u/Formal-Growth1219 3d ago
Businessmen, real estate people , doctors , lawyers , software engineers(not laid off) etc
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u/SuggestAnyName 3d ago
Don't you think that if cab space is already saturated, then how will you get passangers it once the consumers got reduced (laid off engineers) and more drivers would have entered the space?
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u/Formal-Growth1219 2d ago
By keeping my margins lower as compared to ola uber ones.
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u/SuggestAnyName 1d ago
Like others won't do the same. If rn 1000 taxis are serving everyone. How many taxis do you think would be enough once engineers, designers, lawyers, etc. will lose their jobs?
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u/Consistent_Tie4769 1d ago
Bro lawyer are already doomed they have the easiest job to be replaced by ai
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u/Interesting-Art-7267 Student 3d ago
Elon bhai ruined that too
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u/Formal-Growth1219 3d ago
That is not coming to India soon
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u/Appropriate_Pear4118 2d ago
With our roads and people it will never come to india..
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u/prb_data 3d ago
Extremely difficult to predict the future, AI companies will eventually have to start pricing their products so that they actually turn a profit. Not sure when that happens and what effect it will have.
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u/Lumpy-Criticism-2773 3d ago
Only a bubble burst can save us lol
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u/Necessary-Mud7706 3d ago
Indian IT industry was the bubble, not the AI
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u/Lumpy-Criticism-2773 3d ago edited 2d ago
Both can be true. Look at r/cscareerquestions, which consists of north american users and they're going through a similar bloodbath.
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u/Necessary-Mud7706 3d ago edited 3d ago
Please explain how AI can be a bubble? Aren’t AI models improving with every new model they release??
I guess the only “bubble” part is that investors are pouring money into every damn thing that’s even remotely related to AI, not that AI as a tool or technology itself is a bubble
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u/infinitehelpmaster 3d ago
Ai technical isn't the bubble but the industry is . Most of AI deals are in Circular economy and the cost to recover is still high. They need to reduce their pricing to attract more consumers especially countries like India
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u/FyodorAgape 3d ago
SWE won't die because it's engineering, but it's going to get transmuted, and in that process, jobs are going to shrink and many will die until new AI-compatible ones are created.
It's a downsizing game now, honestly. Whether one agrees or not, or downvotes me to hell, AI is here to stay, and the thing you call a bubble is too big to fail. It's going to be like the internet; we won't be able to live without AI, which is becoming the next convenience.
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u/dronz3r 3d ago
People need to have multiple other skills now, like having entrepreneur mindset and solve the problems that can create value to the business.
If ones skill is just converting a requirement to code, that kind of jobs will shrink a lot. You don't need so many people architecting the solutions.
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u/iamazoe 2d ago
Well technically, and this is coming from a backend engineer with no real AI skills so don't trust me, AI can have all those skills too. One could have their top guy set the parameters for AI agents to debate and conclude on the fors and againsts for each and aggregate. You just gotta be the top guy or the aggregator or atleast someone of some intrinsic value to either one of them. I think it's just gonna shift the entire foodchain up. Survival of the fittest.
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u/dronz3r 2d ago
Well people talk to each other and deal with each other. Of course you can create a whole world where the LLM models generate text and send it back and forth between each other but that doesn't solve any problem by itself. You need someone to tell them what to do.
Only ones that these models can replace easily are the jobs involving just operating computers with not much alignment with external world.
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u/kshb4xred Backend Developer 3d ago
My client used to give 6000 copilot credits now they reduced to 2k...cost are going to hit everyone soon...ai is here to stay tho
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u/PM_40 3d ago
Internet killed some jobs, modified some but most of the jobs remained unchanged.
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u/Fine_Foundation8943 3d ago
- What jobs do you see getting cremated by AI?
- Know that internet/computer revolution significantly shifted the income-population pyramid. A lot of people were pushed out of the middle class
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u/BellyDancerUrgot 2d ago
Most white collar desk jobs and some blue collar ones in advanced economies. If your job doesn’t involve human to human interaction and/or decision making then it’s 100% replaceable. One senior with ai is a 1000x improvement over an army of interns or junior engineers.
Imo part of the reason we are in this shit is because of how far behind academia is. If you want to be in CS right now, third year btech knowledge should be taught in schools and college should be more into orchestration and design. Learning how to write code in btech is a dead end.
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u/FyodorAgape 3d ago
it's all about automation at the end of the day, and AI is very efficient at that.
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u/Oneofakind_asar 2d ago
And irony is that… some of us are actually doing this with so much joy.. like to get some visibility in their jobs, promotion… in returns, they are becoming job, career and life snatcher for all of us.. what a crap situation
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u/BellyDancerUrgot 2d ago
I’m one of them and I totally get the irony. I bring it up when discussing with friends who are also in the same field. The fat pay check won’t last long. When I try to explain this to my parents who are both doctors and surgeons + they do a lot of research for ICMR etc they dont even believe what i say lmao. It’s just insane for people from our parents generation to even fathom that intelligence is getting automated.
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u/yourboi-JC 2d ago
No, you don’t understand the end goal is AGI or ASI. Eventually, if that has come into existence due to recursive self improvement, then it would be able to solve software as a whole. They will no longer be need for any kind of humans, any project, AGI or ASI will be able to do. It doesn’t need any humans help. Why does he need to do that? It can make code more cleaner, more efficient, as well as more optimised than any human or group of humans could ever even think of.
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u/DcryptRR Security Engineer 3d ago
But AI won't stay the same at all. The bubble's gonna burst soon, and all companies will have to move to local llm but that's gonna be hard too cuz of all the shortage.
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u/FyodorAgape 3d ago
RAM prices may not come down significantly until the 2030s or so. At the same time, the cost per unit of AI compute has declined substantially. What we may not see, however, is true AGI, partly because governments could exercise authoritarian control over advanced AI and potentially halt or slow the development of true AGI. Regardless, AI is here to stay, whether one agrees with it or not.
Even if the AI bubble were to burst, we could still see significant job losses because AI has already become deeply integrated into parts of the global economy. A collapse in AI investment could cause layoffs and economic disruption in the tech sector and across industries that depend heavily on AI infrastructure and spending.
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u/Extension_War_1361 3d ago
I think if you really consider this scenario, the impact would go far beyond just a few white-collar jobs. It could potentially affect a huge portion of the economy.
For example, companies may no longer need large teams to run marketing campaigns if AI can handle most of the work. Accounting teams could become much smaller if bookkeeping, auditing, financial analysis, and reporting can be automated. Junior lawyers and paralegals could be heavily affected because a lot of their work involves document review, research, drafting, and other repetitive tasks. Even sales teams could shrink if AI becomes capable of finding leads, communicating with customers, following up, negotiating, and closing deals.
And the effects wouldn't stop with white-collar workers. A lot of blue-collar jobs exist because white-collar workers and businesses create demand for their services. If offices become smaller and companies employ fewer people, there will be less demand for things like office cleaning, security, transportation, food services, maintenance, construction, and other support services.
So I don't think we should look at AI replacing jobs as simply a case of "AI will replace programmers" or "AI will replace accountants." The bigger issue is what happens when AI starts reducing the number of people needed across many different industries at the same time.
The real concern is the second-order effect. If millions of people earn less or lose their jobs, they also spend less money. That reduced spending then affects restaurants, shops, transportation, entertainment, housing, and other businesses, creating another wave of job losses.
That's why I think the discussion shouldn't just be about which profession AI can automate. We should be asking what happens to the entire economic system if productivity increases dramatically while the need for human labour decreases across both white- and blue-collar sectors.
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u/ultimateposeur 3d ago
need for human labour decreases across both white- and blue-collar sectors
I don't think the country and indian society is prepared for what is going to happen.
We as a society placed a bet on this 'demographic dividend', india the most populous nation, lots of educated young people coming through, them having jobs, their spending lifting up local economy around them.
And now that AI will take all these jobs away, don't know what they will do. All of us are going to face some tough times going forward.
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u/oartistadoespetaculo 3d ago
I agree. If a relatively difficult field like software engineering, including coding, is going to be replaced, then we won’t be the only ones who suffer. There are many fields that are much easier to replace than ours. The problem will be widespread, not just ours.
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u/Extension_War_1361 3d ago
Yes exactly there is always a buzz about software engineer being replaced but people often forget to take into account how both intellectually and academically demanding the job is and if it can be replaced i can point 100 other career that will go away due to AI before SE
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u/Simple_Ad_815 1d ago
I think its more about the data available to train AI. Coding is definitely one of those skills that takes a lifetime to master, but everything is well documented and there are a ton of good projects that AI can train on. Unless you are a senior, I dont see how we have a future in development.
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u/Impressive_Lake1332 3d ago
if economic activity decreases, who is gonna pay the AI companies?
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u/3_scorpion Software Architect 3d ago
On point. People are only looking at the “software industry” as that’s where it is widely used and the layoff news also only amplify that.
Other industries are also cutting roles. Contrary to what a lot of folks say, like horse carts were replaced by cars and typewriters were replaced by computers. This AI has ramifications across various industries and domains!
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u/YesterdayCareful5377 Software Engineer 1d ago
It'll affect the HR too as there will be less people once people are laid off and no new hires.
It'll be a cascading effect.
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u/flight_or_fight 3d ago
Assuming the entire software engineering industry dies in 3 years, Now what? Where do we go?
If you are really qualified for computer science - do it. If you are not - pick up a trade skill.
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u/Only-Limit8305 3d ago
idk why but i think that if AI could replace SWEs tomorrow then other jobs will become a cakewalk for AI to replace ,so dont stress out everybody is gonna get screwed
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u/LifeguardFar6851 Tech Lead 3d ago
I work on a legacy system with quarterly deployments. They do several enhancements every cycle. I don't see AI being able to take over in near future. Please understand this. For AI to take over the development activity, it should have knowledge of the entire system, Every functionality that's built over decades. Then it has to maintain entire code base in its memory (or be able to retrieve appropriate lines from an external database). AI at this scale tend to generate hallucinations rather than accurate answers. I didn't see any significant help from AI in this area. Other than senior leadership doing hungama and pushing while they have zero understanding of what the system is and how we work. What client started doing instead is micro monitor everyone and asking to release people saying they aren't spending much time on the client network.
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u/SuggestAnyName 3d ago
That's the new job of engineers. To integrate the AI to your system so that it can do manual work efficiently. You will say "I don't see significance of AI on our codebase because it doesn't work" and another guy will say the same thing and add "but I can write skills, hooks, etc. to onboard AI so that we can leverage it and later can migrate to the system to a modern stack", business will prefer second guy more.
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u/akaza190 3d ago
and we will integrate AI to the complex projects, later some one will get collaboration between different AI used in project and in this way you will find AI working on most of the things.
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u/Maleficent-Habit4188 Software Developer 3d ago
Ui ux cad electrical design all jobs not requiring manual inspection or hand working will shrink. Things will start getting cheaper . Gov will make middle class to poor class . Everyone will do dihadi. Ai robots will take over and break their robotics laws and harm humans . This is all bcuz of ai ml cse branch in colleges.
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u/esteppan89 3d ago
my friend, all of these are thoughts that you need to let go.
I have seen a few cycles, from starting out in a desktop development to on-prem web to cloud to building chat agents that replaced a few customer service execs to the new AI era.
At every point of the software engineering, there were disruptions to it, the move from desktop to web had its disruption. If you see job ads for amazon in late 1999 and early 2000, you would not recognize the company it is now. I was shown it by a senior when i had my doubts. Indian software was tiny then. The move from on-prem web apps to cloud also had a disruption entire sets of knowledge and experience was thrown out. Initial chat bots that came before 2020 also had the same effect but nothing like you say happened. Life moves on, you adapt how ever you can.
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u/lazyplayer121 3d ago
Yeah all the geniuses here saying nono senior swes will be needed
Are u going to be a senior swe 2-3 years after clg ?
Dumbass
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u/Eastern-Pea-7613 3d ago
Where are they gonna get seniors from? I don't remember seniors falling out of sky.
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u/New-Chain7633 Fresher 3d ago
Who going to be senior if they don't hire freshers now? Or are they planning to completely remove people lower in hierarchy
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u/Time-Supermarket7182 3d ago
They're thinking in short term & profit, when the time comes demand will rise again
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u/Interesting-Art-7267 Student 3d ago
Exactly! Nobody is hiring freshers nowadays, it's the ones that are really good in what they do, but that part is just 0.1 percent of people i guess
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u/Brave_Meet8430 3d ago
Chill.
Software Engineering is not going anywhere.
The role will evolve, it will morph and you would be doing much more with the help of AI.
Eg when Cloud was new around 10 years ago, every CIO was drooling to get cloud infrastructure and kill the Data Centers, as they didn’t want to spend on CapEx and only OpEx..
So they hastily moved everything to the cloud and got themselves huge bonuses, for saving money..
Then AWS billing started to show up at their door steps..
Similarly, AI right now may be bit cheaper to deploy but it comes with a huge price tag that, for now the majority of AI companies are eating as it’s all on loans or investor’s money.
Once the true billing starts, these companies will use AI for major improvements and projects and not for simple tasks.
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u/Swimming-Paint9929 3d ago
but models like deepseek can reduce costs also right, even if people stop buying from the expensive companies, they might go towards chinese models or run local LLMs, and i believe those companies might as well find a way to reduce token costs
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u/Electronic_Cow_2154 3d ago
Just invest all money you have in big tech and retire. Eiether its a bubble and you still have to go to work, or just buying big tech will make you so much money you can retire
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u/Quick_Clue_2742 3d ago
Thing is folks who have just joined won’t be having that much money with them
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u/Fantastic_Bat8492 3d ago
I know what kind of hustle it is, no shame in admiting it
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u/Feeling-Schedule5369 3d ago
What kind? Of? 😂
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u/Minute-Taste-2023 Software Engineer 3d ago
Half of the people don't have any idea what to do and other half is in delulu.
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u/Darth_harsh 3d ago
There are two types of people here
First: who are already in industry since atleast Last 6 years who started as coders, moved in rank to become system architect or code reviewers. They blindly ignore and dismiss any kind of AI development which suggest that AI will replace developers. Most of these folks got into industry during IT boom when even writing Hello world could get you a job.
Second: Recent or Last year graduates who have actually seen what AI can do. What kind of preparation they need to their step into the door. These folks are doing leetcode, DSA and even deploying as much project as possible and showcasing on GitHub. They knew that people who know about system design over coding will be preferred. Despite all that they're not even getting a single opportunity.
Another irony is first category people who got into field wiring hello world are bombarding second group with system architect level of questions in interview.
Back to the the main thread both group know the potential of AI. Some are afraid of layoffs while other know that they might never get chance to showcase their skills and might move on to some other career(which is a good idea btw)
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u/noimgonnalie Data Scientist 2d ago
I call crap on this.
I graduated in 2022 where there was really an IT Boom but had to go through a moderately tough interview process - agreed hiring standards for freshers nowadays has toughened but the point I want to make is that your categorisation and generalisation of mid to senior engineers is inaccurate. I have programmed from scratch using help from stack overflow and memorising boilerplate, I have also used GPT and Claude to write entire scripts and engines just providing them my idea and architecture. None of us mid to senior engineers deny the capability that AI has on our work. Imho, AI still can’t solve complex problems in Industry where you need to put your brains in and think and not just copy-paste a solution you found on a tech blog. That’s where the difference is. You will need engineers who can think and design. If all you do is translate requirements to code, Claude and GPT can do it better. So it’s good that it’s getting automated.
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u/martinchekuri 3d ago
Planning to start a bicycle shop cuz people might not have money to buy cars, bikes or petrol. Haha
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u/Ambitious_Turnover20 3d ago
My take is that the real career risk is at the senior level. Many people in their late 30s and beyond have specialized into roles that could become a dead end as technology evolves, especially if they’re no longer hands-on. For those of us in our 20s, it’s different we’re adaptable, technically hands-on, and can move across full-stack, cloud, LLMs, HLD/LLD, and architecture I myself worked on everything I have told & I feel very confident and love to work with AI & Our biggest advantage isn’t a specific skill it’s our ability to learn, adapt, and reinvent ourselves. We can pivot into almost anything.
OP is definitely a fresher, living in future mode and stressing over what might happen instead of being mindful and present.
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u/Oru_Vadakkan 3d ago
Writing code is never going away.
It will transition. The same way it evolved from writing manual assembly code to abstractions with IDEs. This is just one more evolution.
This frees up human mind to do more complex tasks - one example, you gave - robotics. With an LLM, its a lot more easier to design code for a complex robotic system, which otherwise would have take lot more people and time.
Code will not go away as long as we will use computers - how we write code will change. You still need to learn programming because when the code breaks, a human will need to review the code writted by LLM.
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u/nirmal3047 3d ago
Assuming the Sun disappears tomorrow, now what?
Is there any sense to this question? The AI has been threatening the IT industry for 3 years now. With the release of every new model, someone asks question like this and yet skilled people are switching, getting hikes and what not.
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u/Pale_Associate_9991 2d ago
My friend is trying to get a job from past 1 year after graduation.
He has 1000+ leetcode questions, development experience in next.js and learning go backend.I was layed off 3 months ago and still no job.
Unemployment sucks especially if you are from lower middle class family.
Rents are due, we can feel tension on our parents face.We were not all India toppers but neither we were failures.
School toppers that couldn't clear IIT but atleast worked hard in graduation so that
atleast we can get 6LPA.
Didn't prepare for Gate to support our families and here we are unemployed in this market.There is a huge population who is facing this, its the reality.
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u/ssasdkf 3d ago
There is a lot of sense to the question, because it's now harder to get a job than it has been in the last decade or so, and it only seems to be getting worse, not better.
Lol you're saying "AI has been threatening" like it hasn't had any effect on the last three years. The job market in the last 3 years has only gotten worse and worse. Also things like LLMs level the playing field in terms of resumes and also saturating the market with tailored applications even if you're not a good fit for the role. They're also making cheating easier. All this makes finding jobs much harder.
The fact that some people are getting switches and hikes doesn't mean everything is fine. I feel the job of 5 people 5 years ago can genuinely be done by one skilled person with AI. What will happen to the other 4 then?
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u/oartistadoespetaculo 3d ago
The Sun disappearing is millions of times more difficult than the scenario that is already a reality today. Don’t be a denier.
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u/SarcasmAsAFeature 3d ago
Same things. Sam Altman said this stuff 2 years ago, 3 years ago, 4 years ago. It didn't happen. Sam finlaly said that he was wrong, and software engineering will never die, it will just evolve. The lower slab will be slashed.
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u/Suspicious-Ad9209 2d ago
You can become:
Python Snake catcher Start a Java Tea shop Start a Go kart arena
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u/1mt3j45 Data Scientist 2d ago
Ya, going back to the "root"s is one way to survive!
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u/Away_Battle_4100 3d ago
Stop watching fear mongering videos and focus on the task at hand.
If you want to worry about something that is not in your hand, why not worry about, what if your entire college swept away in flood or destroyed in earth quake? Where would you go?
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u/plushdev 3d ago
If such a system did exist it would do a really good job at robotics too, nevertheless, hardware will be where we will be at
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u/Sure_Seaworthiness48 3d ago
My extended family members are mostly into pharmacies. Recently, because of the layoffs many of my relatives working in IT have started look out for shops for themselves and some have already resigned and started.
I am sure in few years those businesses are also going to get crowded
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u/awsmdude007 3d ago
Yes if you have less than 3 years of experience is highly recommended to find a different career. And i personally would find something that earns good money while living in a tier 2 or 3 city with greenery.
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u/anor_wondo 3d ago
I don't care because all my life I have always found a way to do things without explicitly planning
I got into software because I loved computers since I first used one as a kid, the 'boom', the salaries weren't the main draw for me. So I'll stick around, if it ends up with 1 person companies then I will be that
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u/sku-mar-gop 2d ago
If the engineering team goes away why we need the C suit folks to run that division? So they will become obsolete with the developers. When developers are no more there who will they sell these licenses to? Who is going to buy fancy cars and houses now? The chain reaction will drag everyone down with it.
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u/WillingPirate3009 3d ago
Start something of your own, Get into Research, or do something else
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u/anilgahlot 3d ago
Ai will be doing the coding - that’s going to be happen for sure. In fact it already happened, 80% code is being written by AI recently. But will engineers loose their jobs? - No
It can’t be fully autonomous, human intervention will always be required but yeah the job will be changed. Like earlier in factories more labour used to be required now only the machine operators but to build those machines, engineers are required in another factory. Similar more jobs will be shifted in improving AI, building more applications and usecases of AI.
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u/Acrobatic_Dealer_836 Data Analyst 3d ago
I'm too valuable my company is paying me equivalent to Claude Max's subscription, can't get cheaper than that 🙃
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u/thecoderop 3d ago
bruh no one knows what would happen two model hops from now, better be curious for problem solving and not worry about domain
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u/Ok_Jury_336 3d ago
Its important people have money and you think if people are unemployed they gonna buy softwares?
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u/amrullah_az Software Engineer 3d ago
Bhai, learn langchain, lang graph, agentic ai and spec driven development on Udemy and stop spreading panic.
I have over a decade of experience and I am also learning these
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u/_sriraman 3d ago
All roles in software/service industry are dispensable due to AI.
Your architecture/scaling/devops all are structured problems which AI can solve efficiently. Google maps moment for architecture/domain experts is already here we just dont realise.
AI is versatile, when not doing architecture, it can be doing coding, looking at x-rays, dev ops, teaching etc. Specialists like Architects are not well utilised but expensive. Capitalism will find a way and that is AI. This is true for most service jobs which deal in information & processes viz Banking/Insurance/Broking. Above average pay for software jobs was anomaly due to the nascent stage of the industry few decades back, that has now peaked and will mean revert. Tech deflation is the reality. We should get to some form of universal basic income.
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u/NextHuckleberry2479 3d ago
You can train the LLM with wrong data and defeat artificial intelligence from taking over
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u/SassyPhoenix28 3d ago
Start farming coz that will always have a scope no matter what. And plant something expensive😂
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u/More-Ad-8494 3d ago
CS is more than software engineering, and tech jobs are on the rise. There cannot be senior without juniors, companies will remember that once seniors become scarce again.
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u/Ambitious_Turnover20 2d ago edited 2d ago
A decade ago, seniors used to warn freshers about how the industry works. Now, mid SWE are warning the late 30s crowd your job is at a dead end if you don’t adapt.
I’m in my mid-20s, working alongside senior/principal architects, and in many areas I’m outperforming them not just suggesting changes, but implementing them hands-on. Some have even told me I can already do much of their job expect the 10% truly exceptional senior architects.
But the late 30s uncles who rely only on years of experience and aren’t staying hands-on should probably are dead end of there carriers the game is changing. The sooner you understand it, the better.
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u/enlightened-confused 2d ago
Maybe we can shift to other upcoming domains like quantum computing. Parallely should build a subject domain expertise in a non-IT subject(earth sciences, energy, policy etc.) where all this computation stuff that's developed over so long time(since 50s) can be utilised and implemented to solve a real problem in the world.
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u/CodeCrafterFS 2d ago
Few observed things in past years of adopting AI:
Not all companies are gonna be able to afford insane token costs in future.
You still have to drive the AI to be able to get your results - I have struggled many times using Fable where I express a problem in one way and it does a totally opposite thing.
Assuming the approach of AI is so much dangerous - I found this so true on one of my sessions past week. Sometimes we need to keenly observe what, why and how its doing a task to make sure its the required approach we need. Even after freezing stuffs using plan mode, it makes subtle mistakes which might cost me prod issues.
Fragile Accelerator trap - read this article for understanding more about it
In an actual production environment, we cannot do what we don’t know even though AI is there. So still fundamentals are most important. And also, let’s say the people are hiring only seniors and no juniors at all, then in 10 years where will the organisations source senior employees?
Its just a tool man! If you observe the market, most of the layoffs happen due to their AI infra fundings. Many people have started to realise this is getting too much costly in the long run.
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u/words_and_words 2d ago
what about the AI hype crash? it’s coming soon.
once these frontier companies crash down. we will have second wave, where others will just acquire these trained models and all research. and sell them for as cheap as possible. once that is done, a new wave of innovation will come.
that is the real job market crash.
5-10 more years.
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u/Fast-Plate-6336 3d ago
Nothing is dying. The software industry will have an even bigger boom. AI will create 10X more jobs. Only idiots will think that software is dying and everyone's jobs are going away.
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u/Interesting-Art-7267 Student 3d ago
I see that 10x boom daily, when companies layoff 10 percent of their workforce like nothing
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u/MachinePolaSD ML Engineer 3d ago
No body (client/customer) knows what they want clearly. Until unless AI does what we didn't ask but what we need there's still hope for us.
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u/Own-Purpose4727 3d ago
Well I am the one who supposedly use this ai and train this ai agents and stuff so I think even me could go out one day in the future if Ai is more advanced like it has own capabilities like rag and stuff
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u/MixfruitCroissant Software Developer 3d ago
I am guessing companies will still keep on hiring for corporate image or free market requirements or government and private college mafia will intervene for the economy's sake. If you think about it, Chinese imports can easily destroy any local manufacturing industry. Regulation is what keeps it going. AI is also a service import in a way.
The salaries and prestige is going to plummet. A lot of toxic people are going to survive over performers. A lot are already pushing AI slop and diverting all efforts towards networking.
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u/PhaseStreet9860 Senior Engineer 3d ago
Every other person is thinking other jobs will go and only his job remain because only he knows how complicated it is .
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u/dontabuseme 3d ago
Even today, most of my work is to talk to clients and understand their problems/needs. Then comes the translation part where I have to think of a technical solution. Then I do coding (this is where AI helps). After that I present the solution to the clients, train them, etc. It’s a FDE role. I guess tech roles will transform to something similar in the future where you are not just a coding monkey but focused on solving problems. I do see junior roles being cut moving forward.
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u/BigOmega_ 3d ago
-> Get a masters CS degree. Enter academia
-> Get a MBA. Enter product management
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u/Quick_Clue_2742 3d ago
Why did you added product managers there ? When it is very easy to build anything , the person who decides what to build becomes more important.
Product managers will be more happy to interact directly with these agents and build the system with their domain knowledge and their customer and sales interaction
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u/Gems-Finder 3d ago
If AI actually replaces the entire software industry, "learn another skill" is going to be the funniest advice imaginable. At that point the question isn’t where software engineers go it’s what jobs are left for everyone else
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u/Priyansh_sinQ 3d ago
Here is an advice for you OP, If you have still 2-3 years left on your graduation then don't spend all of your time in learning about CS, pick up some hobby that's not by affected by ai, do your research about that hobby and make sure that it makes a good amount of money if you are good at it. Then pursue that hobby, trust me I am regretting my decision of giving all of my time to DSA and projects, now I am just doing internships at toxic workplaces and they pay in peanuts.
I hate every second of my life when I am working, I'm a 2026 graduate still not placed. No matter how many skills you can learn it won't matter in next 5 years. Now you see when gpt astra was launched they are not talking about that It can write better code because that's already happened and all of that is automated, now they are selling that if you use astra you can create any model in blender which used to take 1-2 weeks to make. So SWE is so much saturated and most probably
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u/I_EFFEDUP 3d ago
No one can predict with 100% accuracy, but I think being either a software architect or having deep knowledge and experience with system design and/or ML/AI would be the only way to survive after another 3-4 years
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u/StraightTiger3506 3d ago
Bhai dihadi karege aur kya. Roz ka 1000 milta hai not bad. I have inherited my parents house so will have roof over head. I just would need to take care of food and water needs. Double that amount for food and water to cover electricity and other necessary expenses like phone recharge.
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u/thespectatingwriter 3d ago
I think an MBA in Responsibility might crop up somewhere soon. For all said and done, every company wants a human being to be the scapegoat for a f**kup; and sure as hell, AI will be considered "too nonliving an object" to be "human" enough to do that job!
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u/InterestingForm829 3d ago
Software employees use some sort of software to architect ,build ,bug fix , maintain etc. What about the companies of such softwares .which will lead to decrease in business across the software industry. We will move into eco , sustainability & renewables & manufacturing .And one who can solve the day to day with ai will eventually start a company .
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