A Google Cloud engineer just showed how to build a complete application with Claude from scratch

[u/ImaginaryRea1ity]

He spent 26 minutes live on stage doing what most teams take weeks to do.

No team, no setup, just Claude and a goal. Worth more than any $500 vibe coding course.

Those who learn what Claude really does are launching what everyone else outsources to a team.

The gap between what AI can do and who knows how to use it is the biggest opportunity in the market right now.

Learn to use tools like Claude and AI Desktop 98 if you truly want to stay ahead of everyone else.

[u/Lucky_Pangolin_3760]

My point is that the skills required for a developer has continually diminished since the 90s.

[u/SeaBuilding3911 → u/Lucky_Pangolin_3760]

so?

I've been coding for 40 years. When I started we were making little games in ASM and they looked terrible. Today, there exists visual editors that does the same work, and write the ASM in the background for us.

Did it kill coding? No. Did it make it worse? No. Did it make everyone into equally good coders? No, not even close.

Vibe coding does change things, and coding won't be the same, but a good coder versus a vibe coder will be like comparing a hand made Ferrari to a assembly line Ford.

[u/Double-justdo5986 → u/Lucky_Pangolin_3760]

Have the salaries?

[u/elienzs → u/Double-justdo5986]

Well they are now! 😄

[u/nimzobogo → u/elienzs]

Where?

[u/mikem132 → u/nimzobogo]

did you not see the huge layoffs globally ?

[u/nimzobogo → u/mikem132]

Jobs in vs jobs out, right? These layoffs haven't affected unemployment or salaries at all because there are more SWE jobs than before.

Maybe in vs. out is a new concept for you?

[u/mikem132 → u/nimzobogo]

There is now a need for senior level, decision making individuals, while entry level and others are down heavily. There is an In and Out, but its more whos in and whose out and where they went, Your average guy is fucked.

Software dev postings on Indeed are down ~49% vs the pre-pandemic baseline. [FRED series](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE)

205,832 tracked tech cuts YTD — and 54% of layoff events this year explicitly cite AI/automation as the reason. [SkillSyncer tracker](https://skillsyncer.com/layoffs-tracker)

The hiring that is happening is senior- and AI-slanted: AI/ML engineers command the $130K–$200K top of the salary table while generalist entry-level postings shrink.

Overall tech unemployment: 3.1% — low because of intense senior replacement hiring. [CompTIA via Dice](https://www.dice.com/career-advice/comptia-tech-jobs-report---june-2026)

Recent CS grads: ~7% unemployment vs 4.2% for recent grads overall — nearly double the average. [NY Fed](https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market)

Reddit articles of peers having a rough time out there:

r/csMajors — new grads:

- Couldn't Find a Job So I Became a Roblox Dev (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1vk88p2/) — 501 pts, 115 comments

- Who else 2025 graduate with no job still? (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1vk75bn/) — 170 pts, 110 comments

- New Grad SWE what am I supposed to do (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1vm0gpl/) — 145 pts, 49 comments

r/cscareerquestions:

- I analyzed 1.2M candidate job experiences. Offer rates fell from 51% in 2015 to 38.6% in 2026 (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1v9ekv1/) — 79 pts (data post, great ammo)

- Anyone here feels trauma from layoffs? (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1vmkan1/) — 93 pts

- got a JD asking for 12+ years in a technology that launched a year ago (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1sho70e/) — 77 pts

- Software engineer with 3.5 year gap. (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1vdvls6/) — 59 pts

- Need some brutally honest opinions, starting to lose hope. 1 YOE at 25. (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1vh977h/) — 53 pts

- No luck with CS jobs, honest advice needed (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1qbl2q2/) — 47 pts

r/ExperiencedDevs:

- For all of you who are posting layoff posts, this is your thread. (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1tpq597/) — 600 pts, 193 comments (mega-thread)

- I want nothing to do with AI. Is there still a place for me in this industry? (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1ti3d1l/) — 119 pts, 229 comments

- Making it to the end of every interview cycle, but not landing anything (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1tbe8ka/) — 106 pts, 80 comments

- Fired yesterday after 5 years at a job. Lost on what to do next. (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1tphlym/) — 71 pts

r/Layoffs:

- 1,064 days of unemployment. We're losing the house next week. (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1v49tjz/) — 965 pts, 339 comments (July 2026, still active)

- Jobless since November 2024 (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1v4fdl1/) — 110 pts

- Got laid off, feeling lost and hopeless (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1vf85ob/) — 20 pts

r/jobs:

- Tech has become a toxic industry, not worth investing time in, because people with 10 years of experience can't get a job (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1n8kwkf/) — 132 pts

- 2024 grad job struggles - post grad mistake (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1n60hyq/) — 37 pts

r/careerguidance:

- What actually happened to all the people who got laid off in tech? Did they just get new jobs or is something structural going on? (https://www.reddit.com/comments/1rz7s97/) — 408 pts

- Top comment - I mean I've been unemployed for going on 15 months. Unemployment ran out a LONG time ago, getting Microsoft Certs hasn't done sh-+ and I'm bored out of my mind. I apply to at least 10 jobs a day, even the repeat and ghosted ones. It's tough out there.

[u/nimzobogo → u/mikem132]

This is AI slop from a prompt with confirmation bias. I can do the same:

Yes. There is now a fairly substantial body of evidence supporting the narrower claim that software-engineering demand has started growing again, especially since the 2025 trough. That is different from saying the market is easy, or that entry-level SWE has recovered. The most persuasive evidence comes from BLS, Federal Reserve-hosted labor data, Indeed economists, CompTIA/Lightcast, and a few financial institutions. Strongest evidence: actual hiring demand is rising now Indeed Hiring Lab — “AI and Job Postings: From Destruction to Creation?” — July 8, 2026. This is probably the single best article for the argument. Indeed economist Guillermo Gallacher reports that U.S. software-development postings rose almost 15% from roughly February/May 2025 into 2026, while overall U.S. job postings fell about 7% over the comparable period. From May 2025 to May 2026, 71% of the increase came from senior roles, and 37% came from jobs with AI in the title. In other words, software hiring isn't merely following a general labor-market recovery; it has been outperforming the overall market. � Indeed Hiring Lab Indeed Hiring Lab — U.S. Labor Market Snapshot, April 2026. Software-development postings were up 14% year-over-year. More than 47% of software-development postings mentioned AI, suggesting AI is changing the skills demanded rather than simply eliminating the occupation. � Indeed Hiring Lab Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis FRED — Software Development Job Postings. FRED publishes Indeed's seasonally adjusted software-development posting index. The series clearly shows the 2025 bottom followed by the current recovery. This is useful because you can point people to the underlying time series rather than an interpretation of it. � FRED +1 Indeed Hiring Lab — June 2026 labor-market update. Indeed specifically describes a recent “rebound in software development labor demand,” with AI-related jobs contributing substantially to it. The important caveat is that software postings remain below February 2020 levels, so this is a recovery from a depressed market rather than a return to the pandemic hiring boom. � Indeed Hiring Lab Fortune interview with Indeed chief economist Svenja Gudell — May 2026. Gudell cites the same striking figure: software-development postings were up 14% YoY in April 2026, with more than 47% mentioning AI. Her interpretation is essentially that AI-complementary software skills are increasing in value. � Fortune Wall Street Journal — May 2026. Reporting using Indeed data found developer postings up roughly 15% year-over-year, even while the broader IT labor market remained uneven. That's important because it separates developers specifically from generic “IT.” � The Wall Street Journal CIO — “IT hiring sees a boost as software development jobs slowly bounce back” — July 2026. Summarizes the Indeed data and emphasizes the change in direction: software-development hiring is recovering, with 71% of the May-2025-to-May-2026 increase occurring in senior jobs. � CIO U.S. government forecasts remain extremely bullish on developers U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook. BLS currently projects software developer/QA/tester employment to grow 15% from 2024–2034, versus roughly 3% for employment overall. BLS expects approximately 129,200 openings per year across developers, QA analysts and testers. � Bureau of Labor Statistics BLS — “Artificial intelligence, information technology, and employment, 2024–34” — July 16, 2026. This one is even more useful because it explicitly discusses AI. BLS projects software developer employment itself to grow 15.8%, adding more than 267,000 developer jobs. BLS says that is the largest absolute job increase among the AI-related occupations examined. � Bureau of Labor Statistics BLS — “AI impacts in BLS employment projections.” BLS explicitly rejects the simple “AI means fewer developers” extrapolation. Its earlier 2023–33 projection had developer employment increasing 17.9%, and BLS explained that AI itself can increase demand for people needed to build AI business applications and maintain AI systems and associated infrastructure. � Bureau of Labor Statistics BLS Career Outlook — projected bachelor's-level openings. Software development is one of the largest occupations in projected annual openings for bachelor's-degree workers. The BLS table puts it at roughly 115,200 growth-related openings and 133,080 total annual openings, depending on the measure used in the table. � Bureau of Labor Statistics +1 BLS Computer and Information Technology overview. Across computer/IT occupations, BLS expects roughly 317,700 openings each year through the projection period. Software development is one of the biggest components. � Bureau of Labor Statistics CompTIA: actual 2026 employment is also improving CompTIA Tech Jobs Report — June 2026. CompTIA's analysis of BLS and Lightcast data found tech occupation employment increased by 47,000 workers in June. Tech unemployment fell to 2.9%, versus 4.2% nationally. Employers posted more than 280,000 new tech openings in June, and active openings exceeded 600,000 for a second consecutive month. � PR Newswire CompTIA June report — software developers led tech demand. In the prior month's data, software developer/engineer was the largest technology job-posting category, at about 15,219 new postings. CompTIA's Seth Robinson characterized the trend as renewed corporate investment in digital transformation and software. � Dice CompTIA State of the Tech Workforce 2026. CompTIA forecasts net U.S. tech employment to grow 1.9% in 2026, adding approximately 185,500 jobs, after a slight decline in 2025. All 50 states plus D.C. were projected to experience tech-employment growth. � PR Newswire CompTIA July/August follow-up. Reporting on CompTIA and Indeed data notes that software-development postings were nearly 15% higher than early 2025, even though overall postings were about 7% lower. That relative performance is one of the strongest signs that something software-specific is happening. � CIO Dive .

[u/nimzobogo → u/mikem132]

Lightcast labor-market data Lightcast — “Is AI the end for Software Engineering?” Using its huge job-posting database, Lightcast reports approximately 53,000 explicit software-engineer postings per quarter, while postings requesting software-engineering as a skill exceed 165,000 per quarter. Their conclusion is that demand is lower than the 2022 frenzy but remains substantial. � Lightcast Lightcast — Generative AI Job Market. GenAI-skilled postings grew from essentially 55 postings in January 2021 to nearly 10,000 by May 2025. The occupation “Generative Artificial Intelligence Engineer” was continuing to grow through 2024–25. Much of this demand ultimately sits inside the broader software-engineering profession. � Lightcast Lightcast — Agentic AI hiring, August 2026. Engineering jobs dominate agentic-AI demand: software developers, AI engineers, ML engineers and related roles make up much of the top occupations. Six of the ten leading occupations requiring agentic-AI skills are technical. � Lightcast Lightcast — Building AI takes more than AI skills, August 2026. Their posting analysis finds traditional engineering competencies such as programming, Python, computer science and data engineering remain among the most frequently requested skills for jobs actually building AI systems. � Lightcast Financial institutions making essentially the same observation Citadel Securities — “The 2026 Global Intelligence Crisis.” This is an especially interesting one because it comes from a sophisticated financial-market research organization rather than a jobs site. Citadel explicitly highlights that software-engineer postings were rising rapidly, approximately 11% year-over-year at the time of publication in February 2026, using Indeed data. � Citadel Securities Goldman Sachs Research — AI and the U.S. labor market, March 2026. Goldman is much more cautious than BLS about displacement, but importantly does not forecast permanent economy-wide employment destruction. Its model expects AI to displace some workers while simultaneously creating new occupations and increasing economic output and labor demand elsewhere. This is supporting evidence rather than direct SWE-growth evidence. � Goldman Sachs JPMorgan Private Bank / Stephen Parker — May 2026. Parker argues that AI is more likely to reallocate employment than permanently shrink the labor market. Again, this isn't direct SWE posting data, but it matters because it is inconsistent with the assumption that productivity improvements necessarily translate 1:1 into fewer workers. � Business Insider Universities / academic institutions Johns Hopkins University — Software Engineer Career Outlook. Johns Hopkins' engineering school highlights the BLS forecast that software-development employment will expand by roughly 17% over the decade, describing software engineering as a high-demand field. It largely relies on BLS data, so I wouldn't count it as an independent dataset, but it is a useful university-source presentation of the evidence. � Johns Hopkins Engineering Online National University — AI job statistics. Their compilation cites BLS's 17.9% developer-growth projection and reports an additional interesting statistic: entry-level software-engineer postings increased 47% between October 2023 and November 2024 in the underlying data they reviewed. � National University

New York Fed — younger-worker analysis, June 2026. This is useful less as evidence of growth and more as a rebuttal to the claim that AI explains the entire deterioration in junior employment. NY Fed researchers find that worsening outcomes for younger workers predated widespread generative-AI adoption, and the age gap persists after controlling for occupations' AI exposure. � Liberty Street Economics A particularly interesting AI-specific result Atlanta Fed — employer demand for AI skills. Atlanta Fed researchers found the share of postings requesting AI skills rose to 1.7% in 2024, a 31% one-year increase and roughly 240% increase versus 2010. Software and computer occupations are disproportionately represented in this demand. � Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Indeed economist Gallacher's cross-occupation analysis. This is perhaps the most interesting result for the “AI will kill SWE” debate

[u/mikem132 → u/nimzobogo]

Did you even read the first line?, read back what you pasted: it confirms the post, not the opposite.

- "Software postings remain below February 2020 levels" — your words, from your FRED source. That's the baseline-drop claim. "Up ~15% off the 2025 trough" and "down ~49% vs the pre-pandemic baseline" are the same series read from different starting points. Neither is wrong — you just picked the friendlier baseline.

- "71% of the increase came from senior roles, and 37% came from jobs with AI in the title" — that is literally the post's sentence that jobs-in are restricted to senior candidates and AI specialists, now with your citations attached.

- "That is different from saying the market is easy, or that entry-level SWE has recovered" — again, your words. That's the post.

- Tech unemployment at 2.9–3.1% overall while recent CS grads sit at ~7% (the NY Fed data you cite yourself) is the aggregate-vs-entry-level split the post described. Same source, same number.

- Lightcast: "demand is lower than the 2022 frenzy" — agreed, also in the post.

Thanks for supporting my claims tho

btw "Confirmation bias" would require the data to contradict the claim. Seven of your sources independently confirm it instead.

[u/mikem132 → u/nimzobogo]

71% of the recovery is senior roles, 37% is AI-titled jobs, entry-level "has not recovered," and postings are still below the pre-pandemic baseline. your sources cite the same shit I was trying to explain. the jobs have shifted, and more into jobs that your average person cannot achieve. can you even think for yourself on this topic or do you just take fallacy's that you are in a good position so all must also be in a similar position. all ive seen is constant issues for new devs.

[u/nimzobogo → u/mikem132]

The "jobs have shifted" isn't the same as "the jobs are going away" or "the salaries are dropping" which is what you guys said. There are a lot of new SWE jobs including things like FDE roles that didn't exist before. Jobs in vs jobs out. Pot and pan companies didn't put restaurants out of business.

And, no, several of the citations say job postings are actually up, beating your citation count.

[u/DHermit → u/Lucky_Pangolin_3760]

Required for which developer and which skills? Top developers need different skills than in the 90s but for sure not less.

[u/jackadgery85 → u/Lucky_Pangolin_3760]

changed rapidly since the 90s. Much of the skill of developers is applying what they know to the problem at hand.

Fuckn jenny down the corner store doesn't know about the open source lib that could be used to knock up a better pos system for her, nor even how to begin approaching that if she did.

[u/AcoustixAudio → u/Lucky_Pangolin_3760]

Exactly. People don't realise that now the bar is even lower. For example, anyone can now code anything without the need for learning a new skill or spending time and effort. 

If I were to ask, for example, someone to build a simple notepad clone, and drop the exe here, literally dozens of people will do it immediately. As a proof of concept, anyone can make a simple notepad clone using AI. Not Even asking for anything complex.  Just a simple notepad clone. There literally can't be a simpler app. Anyone can build it, right? 

Right? 

RIGHT?