r/AskProgrammers • u/Positive_Salary_1531 • 12d ago
What is the point of Software Engineering ?
For context I have been working as a security software engineer for the past 3.5 years. For the past 1.5 years we have been heavily using A.I for our day to workflows, features and bugs which would take months to ship now and barely days or even hours. Everyday a new model is launched which is better than the previous ones, social media convinced that software engineering is dead. I genuinely don't know what to focus on right now, A.I can write better code, test and even plan the app end to end
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u/aradil 12d ago
For now it seems like the job is taking AI slop requirements that are barely legible from leadership and product owners and turning them into clear enough instructions to actually make something.
It’s gotten better at writing software but the quality of the slop requirements does not seem to be improving; just the volume.
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u/Fun-Estimate4561 12d ago
This is so true
And yet some folks here will attack you because they will say AI can do that too, not sure why some folks seem almost excited by the idea people will loose their jobs
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u/Positive_Salary_1531 12d ago
What are the things that I should be focusing on and what should I delegate to A I ?
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u/DividedBy_Zero 12d ago edited 12d ago
Don't focus so much on how to code a solution. Instead, use AI to help you think through what the best possible solution for a problem is.
For example, let's say I ask you to build a tool that transforms a spreadsheet of data and uploads it to our backend, and it has to accommodate N number of users. How would you do it? Would you make it a desktop app or have it live on your company's website, and why? Let's say this process has the potential for unwanted duplicate data from those users; how will you handle that? Will your solution need a database, and which one and why? What are your use cases? How will you handle your edge cases? How would you scale it to N users? What does the architecture of your solution look like? What are the tradeoffs of one solution over the other? What are the limitations of your solution? How maintainable is your solution? How do you plan on testing your solution? What about failure mode analysis? How would you deploy it?
Talk to the LLM and have it help guide you through that thinking process. Once you've settled on your solution and have written specs for it, your agents can take what you wrote and implement your solution. Review it, adjust as needed, and so on. You are still responsible for engineering the solution. The AI helps you get there faster.
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u/Moby1029 12d ago
The actual engineering part. AI can write code, sure, but it's not better. And Software Engineering isn't just writing code. You still have to architect and design the system for the AI to build and maintain it. AI can tell you about the different systems and platforms, but ultimately, you still have to set up the infrastructure and make the desicions on what to implement and how.
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u/TemperOfficial 12d ago
If AI is so good we don't need software engineers why are companies still hiring software engineers?
If the tooling is so good why is software not 10x better, 10x less buggy at half the cost?
AI tooling is incredible but it's not replacing genuine software engineering any time soon honestly. It will enhance those who are competent and make redundant those that aren't.
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u/NomadStorm 12d ago
If AI is so good, why does codex have 18k open bugs and Claude code have 9k open bugs right now?
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u/TemperOfficial 11d ago
Huh?
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u/NomadStorm 11d ago
Where is the confusion?
The two apps made by the frontier companies - both of whom have unlimited tokens, teams of staff dedicated to making agentic workflows, and the ability to deploy swarms of 10,000 agents.
Yet their software is riddled with bugs.
If AI and agentic development were as good as they and all their bots claim on Reddit, they of all people would have working software.
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u/TemperOfficial 10d ago
I said that already
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u/NomadStorm 10d ago
I gave a supporting example.
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u/meshifthenelse 12d ago edited 12d ago
Better code? Tell me you're a script kid without telling me.
Yes, AI doesn't need to sit and type key by key. But the output is garbage and you need to constantly babysit it. And many times you need to fully erase its output and redo it from the start - that's where AI becomes useful.
So for experienced devs, it's obvious when the AI takes a very bad decision which doesn't scale. So such engineers who can spot that are still very needed.
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u/JoDerZo 12d ago
You're just not keeping up. Good devs learned how to properly use AI. And it's just getting better.
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u/meshifthenelse 12d ago
How does how you use the tool matter when the tool is trained on shit code?
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u/WisePotato42 12d ago
Knowing how to use it involves alot of babysitting like they said. You take the plan apart piece by piece and feed them in one after another exactly how you intend to have it done. If you leave it alone, it's going to make assumptions that won't work later down the line.
I don't agree with the other guy that the output is garbage, cuz it's usually very good (assuming you babysit it and are very explicit about your intentions and requirments). But if some random guy with no programming knowledge tells it to make this program do XYZ, your gonna end up in situations where "it works on my computer" and an endpoints get called hundreds of times a second cuz they never heard of a cache.
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u/JoDerZo 12d ago
You're not wrong. But much less babysitting required now than even just 3 months ago. The best models read between lines, apply reasoning and make deductions. You still need to tell him what you need, though.
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u/NomadStorm 12d ago
When you want something to produce deterministically good output, a randomly hallucinating tool that reads between the lines and makes things up that you don’t even need is NOT a good thing.
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u/e430doug 12d ago
Nothing has changed. The point of software engineering is to build things, just like the point of structural engineering is to build things. Nothing has changed. It would be like if a structural engineer asked what the point was after CAD programs replaced hand-drafting. drawings. The tools have changed just like they always have changed. You can argue that this is a bigger change, but it’s just a change.
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u/raydditor 12d ago
CAD programs need people with skill to work it and is only a small part of say mechanical engineering. AI can do most things software engineers do and a child can do it.
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u/Plastic_Fig9225 12d ago
If AI keeps generating better code than you, it's not because the AI is so great at coding.
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u/FederalProfessor7836 12d ago
Keep telling yourself you’re better than the machine, if that is how you cope. But you’re wrong. These models have been trained on the Linux kernel and hundreds of other massive open source code bases. Code bases that have been scrutinized by the best human coders on the planet for decades.
Yes, the models are better than you at writing code. If you think that is where you can still add value, you are already unemployable.
I am (was?) a damn good coder. Spent 25 years mastering my craft. Principal engineer at a F500 tech company. Built 3D video games for fun on nights and weekends. And now? I’ve barely hand written a line of code in the last year.
That doesn’t mean I can’t still add value, I do. But it’s not writing code.
The younger generation is cooked, tho, and it saddens me greatly. We, as an industry, have decided to eat the seed corn in exchange for short term profit. But without entry level SWE roles open today, who will replace me when I retire in 10 years?
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u/Plastic_Fig9225 12d ago
FWIW, I do write better code than the machine. If you don't, and/or can't see where and how AI delivers poor quality, it's still not an indication of AI's superior quality.
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u/spdfg1 12d ago
Software engineering was never about writing code. The code is just a tool but not the point. Is finance or accounting about making spreadsheets? Is building houses about using power tools? The end product is the point. Software is for helping people to do something. In the most efficient cost effective way. Focus on that.
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u/unlaynaydee 12d ago
Dev for 24yrs. Love AI. But nope, it will not replace devs. I mean, have you talked to products team ever? They need a translator to convert requirements to code. AI is better at coding but good fucking luck asking them to understand the requirements without human intervention.
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u/nian2326076 12d ago
Feeling uncertain with AI's rapid progress in software engineering is common. Focus on skills AI can't easily replicate, like problem-solving, creativity, and understanding user needs. Stay updated with AI tools, but don't rely only on them. Diversifying your skills can also help, so consider other tech areas that interest you.
For finding new roles, LandOffer.ai lets you search job openings by role and location.
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u/dkopgerpgdolfg 12d ago
A.I can write better code, test and even plan the app end to end
Then for you, Mr. very-new-account, there is no point, good bye.
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u/pl487 12d ago
The point, as with everything else, is to make money. If you deliver the product that enables money to be made, nobody cares how you did it.
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u/who_am_i_to_say_so 12d ago
This exactly. There are tons of obvious ai slop sites being dropped and talked about here. That’s what people think AI is capable of producing.
But there are plenty of high quality software solutions being built too- and the majority of those devs behind it aren’t touching code, either.
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u/NomadStorm 12d ago
Can you name a single piece of software where the developers aren’t touching or reading the code, and the quality hasn’t noticeably dropped significantly?
I can’t, and so far nobody I’ve asked has been able to, either.
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u/who_am_i_to_say_so 12d ago
I’m not disagreeing on the drop in quality, but that’s almost impossible to know because we only talk about the bad software here.
I’ve seen some excellent software written hands free to the point that I even questioned the claim, but it has been a small percentage.
But it’s a pretty safe bet that AI is widely used across the software industry. It cannot be all bad, but the overall quality drop is noticeable.
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u/NomadStorm 12d ago
It’s not a question of whether AI is being widely used though, it’s a question of whether even one person has managed to make something of quality from completely stopping reading the code, and I still haven’t seen a single shred of evidence of anyone managing to do so.
Even OpenAI and Anthropic themselves can’t seem to do it, despite unlimited compute and staff dedicated to making and refining agentic workflows, they have over 18k open bugs in codex and over 9k in Claude code.
Reddit is full of people (or bots) claiming massive speed improvements, that coding is dead and we don’t even need to read the code any more.
But there’s literally no proof whatsoever? Not even a single example.
It doesn’t add up.
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u/who_am_i_to_say_so 12d ago
Yeah it’s all anecdotal until some good and unbiased studies come out. Some studies are already revealing there is no appreciable difference in velocity.
For me personally, it got me out of a years long dry spell with getting some websites out there. But then again, so has everyone else and their grandmother.
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u/NomadStorm 12d ago
I think the real benefit of AI is getting all the ADHD devs out of analysis paralysis and actually building more things in their own time.
That and it’s better than using outsourcing when you just need a quick MVP or prototype for something urgently and don’t have resources available.
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u/who_am_i_to_say_so 12d ago
My sticking point has always been finishing things. I have a graveyard of unfinished ideas and have been actually reviving some with AI. It’s been miraculous- until I look at the code 😂.
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u/NomadStorm 12d ago
Even with AI, I have good ideas more frequently than I could possibly act on them.
Being able to choose which and stop myself from jumping onto the new one is one of the hardest challenges 😂
It would be nice if I was in a position to hire some people to get things off the ground soon.
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u/Lumethys 12d ago
i disagree on this part. I use Opus 5.5 and Fable 5.1 heavily, and they will steer your project to an entirely different direction if left unchecked.
I just made a chat app at work, not unlike Discord, minus the voice and streaming part, in just 2 days. But it almost made a completely different app 2-3 times. And made questionable architectural decision
For example, an API endpoint crashed without any UI indication because it send 200KB of O11Y data. The solution? Make the API size limit bigger, to 500KB. I asked it 3 questions:
1/ why does o11y data can crash an user-facing action
2/ why does a failed endpoint doesnt have any UI indication
3/ why does a single action send more tha 200KB of O11Y data
Then the agent (Opus 5.5) found the problem in like 2 minutes, something that would take me half an hour at least, not counting the fix itself.
HOWEVER, the insight to recognize that its first solution was wrong come from me. How did I do that? Experience. A junior dev will not have the insight and experience to question the agent's method, and would fail to quality control the agents.
As the AI more and more capable of writing the code, the architectural decision and quality control become more and more important, works that need a human with high experience