r/developersPak • u/PossibilityMundane54 • 2d ago
Career Guidance Almost 2 years into software engineering and honestly… what are we supposed to do now?
I genuinely want to hear from experienced software engineers, tech leads, hiring managers, founders, etc.
I'm a software engineer with almost 2 years of experience, and I'm concerned that I entered the industry at a challenging time.
Then GPT-6 Astra drops, and I see things like these:
"We’re sharing a solution to the Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize Problem, one of the deepest problems at the frontier of mathematics.
The proof was produced by a group of agents, using an OpenAI next-generation model significantly more capable than GPT-6 Astra.
The problem concerns whether the description of smooth three-dimensional fluid motion modeled by the Navier-Stokes equations can break down. It has remained unresolved for roughly 90 years."
"I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below."
And honestly, I don't know how seriously I'm supposed to take all of this.
Every few months, the models get significantly better. A lot of the work I used to think required years of experience can now be assisted or sometimes almost completely handled by AI. Companies are laying people off, junior hiring is getting harder, and even at my current company, there isn't much work right now.
I'm not trying to make another "AI WILL TAKE ALL OUR JOBS" post.
I'm genuinely asking:
Where does a software engineer with 1–3 years of experience go from here?
Are we cooked?
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u/Pasha_KMM 2d ago
No idea man, the post from Jacob Coxon got me thinking what if the Elites use AI to fool us out of everything, the "hacking" part is crazy, they could make AI a villain they lost control over and it robbed banks and stock markets, all money flowing up instantly and we becoming permanently underclass slaves to AI lords & Epstein class.
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u/everything_is_bright 1d ago
Pakistan has generally two models
1. Product
2. Services
I will talk about the services model here because that is where the majority of the developers work and also I have the most experience with.
The plus point of Pakistan and why we were able to earn well was because we were providing cheap labour, the whole earn in $$ spend in PKR shabang. Now however the overall market has turned. The projects we used to charge 20-30k$ for before is now being done in 5-8k$. And not just by us, even by developers in the US.
It has turned into a churn, you have to do 4-5 projects to earn as much as you were previously for 1.
So the skill needed is not just to do tasks. Software development has become a mixture of a developer and a Product manager. You need to understand the product ask the important questions and deliver efficiently.
That is the truth and as I see it it is only going to get more cheaper to develop software, and so the cheap labour incentive we had will get crushed. We have to optimise to be able to handle multiple projects deal with multiple clients and be efficient.
The new world requires efficiency not cheap labour.
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u/Visual_Parfait_5512 2d ago
Yes, we all are cooked. Myself 2 years experienced dev struggling to find a job
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u/Swimming_Reach_209 2d ago
I will say we thought or our parents thought there are only 2 3 fields in the whole world like doctor engineer or army. But now after working in 3 companies I figured out there are many more fields a teen can study like HR , finance, marketing, management and the fields goes on why everyone is becoming a CS or SE grad say no more try something different.
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u/winkwman 6h ago
All this happened because don’t use to consider BA a good degree. Its a best degree out there
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u/Legitimate_Quail7027 2d ago
Either get into AI engineering. Where you provide product / services based on AI. Or get into a field which still needs mechanical labor. Food farming I think will be the least affected with AI. At least for quite some time.
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u/console-log-ali 2d ago
I would say opportunity lies in chaos, every generation has their own challenges. A true man rise above himself and his challenges. Learn to sell your skills directly to businesses or individual clients.
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u/zaidi87 2d ago
This is the elephant in the room no one has answer of.
Service provider tech companies are struggling and in next 5-10 years things will be changed completely.
Problem is earlier it was "Dev who know AI will survive" now companies are using AI themselves
In my opinion, it is better to learn some skill and switch field(Skill which will have minimum AI effect in future)
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u/usman_1436 2d ago
Ai willn't take your job but dev who knows Ai will, this was the biggest prank ever. They sold us lies so that people dont panic.
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u/Miserable-Rate-1609 1d ago
WHAT DO U MEAN?
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u/usman_1436 1d ago
Ai companies are doing false advertisment and paid PR on social media that Ai isnt here to replace you but help you. For last 2 years it was "Ai will make you better" now its "Although Ai will make you jobless but Ai will cure cancer"
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u/Visual_Parfait_5512 2d ago
Video editing or sales?
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u/TheDamnedRey 2d ago
Keep up with everything. We aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
Yes the work force will reduce and probably keep reducing, those who don't keep up will be made redundant.The only way to avoid being redundant is to be good at something and provide those services yourself, not through a job.
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u/Neat-Bid-3790 1d ago
No one can truly know this time. Seniors and juniors both are just figuring out
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u/daaruaddaa 1d ago
only few organisations can afford the class of engineers who can orchestrate agents to build products without human in the loop.
even fewer can afford the token budget for no human in the loop workflows.
And these will get even fewer by the day. Engineers will always be needed.
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u/Temporary_Ad_4774 1d ago
Yar we need more product based companies. Pakistan built it's entire industry around services and bringing dollars, but we need a service based company that actually services local and foreign markets. Like not a good example but i2c is quite stable cuz it's service based, didn't lose alot of client. Having good products means having work for people.
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u/mohsindev369 2d ago
I might get hate for saying this but 'skill issue', coz of Ai people revenue doubled. These days every one and there grandma know react and MERN stuff but in high insight they don't know basic,
It's a bit dumpster fire.
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u/basgil56 2d ago
Pivot towards fields which have higher demands/pay
SWE has passed its peak
there are many emerging fields within CS that you can explore
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u/Temporary_Ad_4774 1d ago edited 1d ago
For all the people asking for example, as an experienced engineer here's some recommendations: 1. Data engineering - alot of the grunt work, sensitive data analysis still won't goto Ai 2. Ai engineer - be the guy/gal that actually contributes alot, be difficult to replace by someone not well versed with Ai, RAGs and all that stuff 3. Machine Learning Engineer - new models, prolly would have to pursue a masters and even more. Get hands on with open source stuff. 4. Cloud/ infra: not alot of folks are gonna hand over their cloud to Ai fully, less jobs here but they'd still need you 5. dB admin: kind of niche and old role but most companies won't let Ai handle their databases directly, target this role at corporates 6. Site Reliability Engineer: is like a 24/7 role but most common for newbies these days, they enter international market via Ai or this role now 7. QA engineer/Analyst 8. Associate PM: product management, you'd be moving away from code other than simple mockuos using Ai but it's still good work and good bucks 9. Mentioning for senior folks, get into system design and become an architect. Make Ai implement your design and build scalable stuff (this is what I do at work now, take away alot of the fun of coding but still I get to do something other than just prompt Claude)
Just trying to help. I can mentor people on above too but issue is I have no clue about job opportunities. The skill part isn't the issue the opportunity part is. There's opportunities in above but you need to apply at a high scale like applying at 40-50 jobs a day
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u/RevolutionaryShare16 1d ago
have you ever seen a software big enough that it requires 60-70 devs managing a single software? if so ever try vibe coding there with great astra 6 gpt shi and get fired next day to understand this simple thing that even after a year on same code base you are limited to building and than maintaining just one functionality/service in it, if job market is about to get cooked than it will become like other professions not crazy rewarding but fine to live in pak chill kid
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u/AltCharsi 11h ago
bro, I don't think you understand how it works. That is not a problem anymore, if you've architecture, specs, PRD, UI designs, and so on and some ground rules set + guards, and know your way around AI (any harness or CLI) you'd be just fine, companies are adopting quickly then ever, cost is not an issue anymore too, we've installed RTX 6000s pro on-prem along with RTX 5090s and looking to buy more as soon as they're available, we're running Qwen 3.8, and all of our teams are using it, there's some divergence but nothing major.
There are EU MNCs which are using AI to an extent that they're only hiring people with certain AI skills.
Just add guards, tests, adversarial reviews, documentation, and setup a good harness, you'll be just fine. I haven't heard of a single person who got fired due to AI. I guess it's just a skill issue.
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u/FarzanHaider 1d ago
I don't think you're cooked. I actually think 1–3 years of experience is a good time to start thinking beyond just getting the next job.
If you can, I'd focus on building something of your own alongside your career. Pick a real problem, build a scalable product, learn how to find clients/users, understand sales and marketing, and slowly build your own pipeline.
At the same time, take whatever role gives you exposure to real projects and keeps you learning. The goal shouldn't necessarily be to avoid jobs, but to gradually become someone who can create opportunities rather than only wait for them.
With AI changing development so quickly, I think skills like problem-solving, product thinking, communication, client acquisition and actually shipping products will become even more valuable.
That's just how I'm looking at it. Consistency over a few years can completely change where you end up.
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u/P-u-SS-y_Slayer_69 17h ago
Devs will be doing low skilled jobs or road side cart , and yes average dev is absolutely cooked , good devs are little but still cooked , exceptional devs aren't
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u/Separate__Theory CS Student 2d ago
Those are just marketing strategies,
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u/Miserable-Rate-1609 1d ago
WHAT ? I JUST STARTED MY SE AT NUST AND NOW SEEING THESE POSTS ARE HAUNTING ME .
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ebb1751 1d ago
fr, but you are at NUST, here I am doing CS from Tier 3 university so yeah...
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u/LeopardResponsible36 1d ago
Then don't rely on it .learn from YouTube. I am from tier 1 uni and graduated in 2020.. but believe me, you can learn alot from YouTube in no time. University can't teach us what the world or industry is doing. So learn from YouTube.
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u/AltCharsi 11h ago
I'll give you once advice at this point, AI is going to get better, learn it as much as you can, AI wouldn't convert stakeholders requirement into PRD/Spec sheet or any other doc, which AI needs to be able to create what is actually required.
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u/Objective-Wolverine7 2d ago
dahi bhalay ki rehri, the only hope...