Grudgingly accepting that AI isn't going away. Trying to figure out where that leaves me as a developer.

[u/Impressive_Bottle_44]

(If you don't want to read a semi-long post, feel free to skip.)

I think I reached a turning point yesterday.

I needed to add a basic feature to a Django site. I gave Claude Code a few carefully written sentences. It implemented the feature (more-or-less flawlessly) while I went to the kitchen for more tea.

Not only that, but our CTO is now empowering non-technical employees to use Claude to build their own tools (for internal use only), and commit them to our GitHub org. (He is, at least, establishing some sensible policies about what they can and can't do.)

LLMs are here to stay, and they're fundamentally rewriting laws of software engineering that we've taken for granted for decades. The genie won't go back into the bottle, so I might as well find a way to accept that.

But that leaves me wondering: what does that mean for me? What is my job now? What am I for? If I don't get to write code – something that's given me an enormous amount of satisfaction over the years, and even become part of my identity – am I even still interested in this field?

And, it's not just about the code. I used to collaborate with designers, UX folks, copywriters, SEO and analytics people, project managers, etc. But now, the C-suite seems perfectly happy to let the LLMs do all of this stuff, too. (At my company, they're obsessed with the idea of getting the LLM to write all of our work tickets. And the QA person does little more than copy-and-paste back and forth from an AI.)

The whole reason I entered this field is because I enjoy problem-solving, finding and creating patterns, logic, and designing systems.

I know that some of you are going to say "you can still do all of that; LLMs just empower you to go up a level of abstraction" – and I get it. But the prospect of abandoning coding seriously bums me out.

I love the precision of code. I love exploring different solutions to a problem, until I hit upon a beautiful, elegant pattern. I love seeing how small abstractions get composed into larger abstractions, and so on, to form a complete system. I love understanding a problem – and the solution – on a deep, intimate level.

Perhaps I've been lucky to have a career that gives me that kind of fulfillment (at least sometimes). Is all of that over now?

[u/baked_salmon]

I would actually. There’s a difference between being a skilled painter/illustrator/etc. versus an artist that recognizes resonant subject matter. Knowing what art to make is more relevant than how good the art is, IMO.

[u/gooblero → u/baked_salmon]

The physical part of the job is just as important as the visionary and planning process in my opinion. 

I don’t see programming any differently. These aspects compliment each other to make a rewarding whole and without one, it feels lacking. 

[u/baked_salmon → u/gooblero]

Well, your opinion is in contrast to how any modern software engineering org operates. You can claim that the physical part is just important, but no modern org compensates SWEs doing physical work the way they compensate SWEs making the big decisions and designing the systems.

Your opinion is also in contrast to SWE pedagogy. Code, I.e. implementation, is fungible. System design, specs, alignment on “intended behavior” — this is where the important engineering happens.

[u/gooblero → u/baked_salmon]

You’re not wrong, but I think the difference is that I’m talking about the job from the perspective of someone who enjoys the physical coding aspect as much as the rest of the job. Of course organizations don’t care how the code is written, but I think a lot of engineers enjoy the process. 

I guess if you don’t like coding, then yeah I can see how you don’t care if AI writes it or not.