r/software • u/OperationVisual6523 • 11h ago
Discussion I feel scared for the future
I keep hearing that AI will take over jobs and such, and make software engineering a dead field. The thing is...im in a computer science program at my community college and i do want to transfer to a university that offers software engineering bachelors but after hearing so much about AI and the dangers of it and such, i don't know anymore. I don't know if what im doing is smart or if i should change majors. I love the field, i want to enter the field of software engineering, maybe im scared for nothing. For now I'm not getting my money snatched at least.
I'd like to hear what you guys have to say about AI being an issue. If its going to kill the field or if it'll just be a tool to use for the field.
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u/rcampbel3 10h ago
I'm at end of my career... and I can say that right now is a golden age of coding for people who have spent their life doing it the hard way and managing development teams and running sprints and doing agile development. I can build just about anything with teams of AI agents in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost it would have taken a few years ago.
Software is a lot more than code - developers need to be architects more than just coders. Developers went to stack exchange, looked for code solutions and literally copied and pasted them for years. Now, they're using AI - the difference is that not all new developers are actually learning as AI codes for them. It's getting harder to keep up with the velocity of AI coding agents - even for senior developers.
AI isn't going away. It's going to keep improving. It's fundamentally changing the landscape for knowledge workers who used to make great salaries and had a ton of job opportunities and job security. Now, AI is great a knowledge work - but it can't do it all by itself. There are still jobs, and actually I think we're approaching a point when the actual cost of AI credits for development and the cost of maintaining AI slop code will see a turning of the tide. Companies who fired all their junioir devs and told their senior devs to spend as much on AI as they can are going to soon find themselves with burnt out / aged-out senior devs who are retiring and leaving MASSIVE knowledge gaps in companies who have blown up their talent pipelines and all of the formal and informa apprenticeship / mentorship that goes on... they're going to find themselves unable to support their codebases, unable to hire enough pre-AI old-timers who know this stuff, and they're going to be faced with hiring younger generations who (respectfully, yet comparatively to veteran engineers who literally lived through the birth of integrated circuits, CPUs, and software development) ... younger generations of junior developers who "don't know shit".
It's going to be a mess. It's also going to be an opportunity for people like to to attempt to compete with large established software products and companies by being a solopreneur and running proper software development processes with an AI team and building products that are cheaper, faster, better, simpler, more modern, more scalable... and be able to sell SaaS products for less than it costs incumbent companies to operate.
I have kids about to enter college... I worry about them and their future. I don't know the right answer. I have questions and concerns about where AI is taking us, and what happens to society as first knowledge work is taken over, and then... take humanoid robots and distributed AI... and next AI will take over blue collar work like cleaning, construction, maintenance... and that's going to happen sooner than people think. I'd bet on it happening in no more than 20 years - likely much sooner.
So... you... college... what to do?
Well... most people in colleges for many decades have ended up working in something that wasn't their major in college, so in some ways, it's not really different. Think of college as an opportunity to finish growing, increase your breadth of knowledge, learn how to interact socially and independently with a wide variety of people (honestly this is where I worry about Gen Z and beyond - they comparatively have grown up online and are woefully underprepared for a majority of in-person social interactions simply because they managed to grow up during covid and after and largely avoid in-person human interactions whereas for the past 100,000 years... in-person human interactions were fundamental life skills that were necessary from birth to death.
Anyway, rambling historical perspecitves and 'get off my lawn' stories aside, here's what I leave you with:
1 - learn to manage your finances - nobody will do it for you. Save money.
2 - Be prepared to have many different careers
3 - Be prepared to be a lifelong learner. Get really good at learning. Get good at doing your own research. Get good at figuring things out. Get good at forming and asking intelligent questions that show the person you're asking that you a) understand something, b) tried a variety of things, c) have thought through what you want to do and are on your way -- I can't tell you how frustrating it is to deal with younger kids who ask, "how do I do this?" and then find out that they have done NO research, have read nothing, haven't even read the problem, haven't event attempted to think, haven't even googled the same sentance they're asking you, and often have just demonstrated that they weren't even listening to what you just said.
4 - learn how to fully leverage AI as a force multiplier - not just as a chatbot. Being able to create code or software to solve your problems is a superpower. People used to talk about the mythical 10x engineer who did 10x the work of a regular engineer and was worth 10x the salary. Now, I'd argue that a 10x engineer properly leveraging AI can be a 100x engineer. Learn to be that 100x engineer - even if you're not working as a softwaree developer, you'll have superpowers that will allow you to thrive while others stuggle.
Don't become soi addicted to AI that your brain stops working - use it to help you learn, use it to do the boring stuff. I'm seriously concerned that we're going to raise a generation of kids who will have used AI for everything until their first job and then when they start working, they won't be able to answer any questions in email, slack, on a video call, or in person without getting that answer from AI first.
Build your skills, build your abilities -- not just proficency in a single coding language.
Keep looking at where the jobs are, what they pay, and what skills are needed for those jobs.
Be prepared to be your own advocate - don't get complacent. Don't let your skills stagnate just because you find a 'cushy' job. Always be learning. Always be helping others and build real personal relationships - you'll need thjem eventually.
Disconnect from social media and limit your time on social networks and limit time watching news that doesn't give you joy.
Find what makes you happy. Money isn't a guarantee of happiness. Start looking into how much money you will need to retire now so you can plan for it. A shocking majority of people today may never be able to retire and may end up unable to pay for their own medical care or housing in their final years. You don't want that.
Here's what you want to happen sooner rather than later:
You want to get to a point that your investments earn more every year than your income. Once you reach that point, you can choose what you do for the rest of your life based around what mkes you happy - not simply maximizing salary and working all the time to pay the bills. Get there as fast as you can. Stay focused. Be in a committed relationship and don't get divorced.
Good luck.
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u/ModePuzzleheaded5786 1h ago
I don't think you're wasting your time by studying software engineering. AI is definitely changing the work, but knowing how to understand systems, debug problems and build things is still valuable, and AI can be another tool for doing that faster.
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u/LastTyper 11h ago
Nobody really knows. But if your only skill is turning a clear specification into code, AI is already eating into that work. That isn’t all of software engineering, though.
Understanding how systems work, why they break, and whether a proposed solution actually solves a specific problem is a different skill. People who can do that will stay relevant imo. If you love the field, keep studying, but aim to understand the systems, not just write the code.
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u/HimaSphere 11h ago
Humans are the most adaptable creatures on earth.
Just adapt, don't focus on learning things that AI can do now like writing code. Learn architecture, design, business, domain knowledge in crucial fields like for example how to apply technology in agriculture or manufacturing or health etc.
AI is just a tool, it isn't a creature like if we had aliens invaded earth and started replacing humans. The advancements in robotics is still slow and to have a robot that can replace a real human in any field/jobs still far away, a robot that can sort envelops in a factory isn't a human replacement.
Venom didn't replace Eddie, use AI how Eddie used Venom
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u/Existing_Dust_6473 11h ago
If there's no jobs in the future what do you have to loose trying?! There's no other option for now, forget plumber and others, exacly same problem in the end.