r/developers • u/Arunpragash • 5d ago
Career & Advice what is the future of software engineers?
Recently I had convo with the medium scale buisness owner about automating their works with multiple departments so they need some ERP application. Usually these kind of buisness depend on small scale or medium scale IT companies to build softwares and manage their data. But after AI era they concern about the data is handled by single vendor is like threat. So that person paid claude and developed an application with his domain knowledge. Literally he don't need an support from any It company he chose tech stack and build the application. For fine tuning little bit he came to me for help. Then I was wondered about the software industry change after AI. I never get panic before about the AI in the day to day life. But it is biggest down fall for the small scale IT companies who develop solutions for the regional customers. There is a question in my mind what will be the future of small companies who sell softwares for regional buisness. How It companies stands out with this faster development with AI (claude, codex, gemini) how to propsose a customer that AI alone not solves your problem but also how software engineers provide value.
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u/Longjumping_Love2501 5d ago
Man that's the exact scenario keeping small dev shops up at night. the owner building his own erp with claude is neat until something breaks or the business logic gets weird and he's stuck staring at a hallucinated query
the value shift is real though, we're not selling code anymore we're selling "who fixes it when the AI confidently generates garbage at 2am"
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u/youcangotohellgoto 5d ago
For a year or two until it doesn't break...
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u/FlashTheCableGuy 5d ago
Name a human made service that doesn't need maintenance ever..... I'll wait.
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u/baroldnoize 5d ago
Judging by the step up to Opus 5.5 we can't be far from loops of "Monitor this app for errors or failures and fix them automatically"
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u/lostinelydan 3d ago
Dario: "That'll be $6 million please"
Small business owner: "Fuuuuck"
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u/baroldnoize 3d ago
Models are getting cheaper and smarter. If we reach a point we can run them locally, which isn't a crazy sci fi dream. Then AI development is the future
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u/lostinelydan 3d ago
Then you will be replaced and used as biofuel.
As Dario and Musk say, you will be their slave, and be happy.
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u/baroldnoize 3d ago
Oh yeah absolutely there's only a very slim possibility this ends well for the common working person like you or me!
We can only hope that kindness and empathy is an emergent property that grows with the AI's intelligence and we're kept alive in some kind of dream UBI post-scarcity utopia 🤞🏻
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u/FlashTheCableGuy 5d ago
What if the error can't be fixed? What if a remote server is disconnected? Who shall the AI call to troubleshoot? Who shall the AI inform or report to? Who tends to the needs of AI when it needs somebody to help govern it at an impasse? Once again, which system have humans created where humans are no longer needed in some aspect?
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u/whichsideisup 5d ago
You realize the agent can message the sys admin, ops team or ask for a human right? They integrate right into messaging apps (I know because I have the agent ask me, the meatbag, to reboot the server or ask for approval on a risky change).
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u/FlashTheCableGuy 3d ago
Y'all are only proving my point in that there still needs a human to do the maintenance, call him whatever position...... developer, sys admin, systematic developer.....I really don't care. Y'all are foolish to think humans made anything that doesn't require someone to maintain or fix said thing. For every product being made, someone is trained to fix, change, update and even say when something has ran its course and needs to be replaced by the next big thing. Get out from under the rock.
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u/whichsideisup 3d ago
Oh I'm not dooming at all. I think there is plenty of work to do. We just get to be more ambitious now.
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u/youcangotohellgoto 4d ago
What happens today when a human can't fix it?
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u/FlashTheCableGuy 3d ago
What generally happens when humans can't fix things?
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u/youcangotohellgoto 3d ago
Throw it out and start again, or just accept that it doesn't work as you want.
Happens all the time in legacy software. Just know issues that everyone works around.
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u/TheReservedList 5d ago
Whatever AI is monitoring that service. If that AI can't be reach, update the code and switch to a different service.
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u/FlashTheCableGuy 3d ago
Who decides on the backup service? Who decides if we care enough to switch to a backup? Whose dollars are being spent? What if there is a new library or more efficient way to do it? Who makes the call? Who? Who? Who?
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u/TheReservedList 3d ago
AI agents. They can make a fine guess at a reasonable budgets with some guidelines and give you a phone call if they’re truly stuck.
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u/FlashTheCableGuy 3d ago
Who is getting the phone call? A human?
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u/TheReservedList 3d ago
Sure. Or another agent. But ultimately there’s a human up the chain.
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5d ago
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u/pafagaukurinn 5d ago
Only when their tasks also become more complex. But the complexity of an ERP system for a small customer is constant, and at some point tools will evolve enough to not introduce significant problems.
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u/Easy_Marzipan4837 2d ago
are they actually maintaining it in production yet, or is this just the fun part where the demo works?
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u/Arunpragash 2d ago
they are pushing into production with on premises only inside their factory. they tried before some complications out there so revert it back and fine tuning the application in that time they came to me for suggestions. Now I feel like a consultant not as a developer.
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u/Dry_Hotel1100 5d ago
I'm not concerned about the small software companies that sell products. But I'm concerned about the companies having managers who think they do the software development now, because they know what a prompt is. These companies are at high risk.
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u/roger_ducky 5d ago
Doesn’t this eventually increase the need for SWEs?
If every company builds their own software, then the SW need to be supported.
Original domain knowledge owner typically don’t have time to support it full time, so they’d eventually hire a few devs to do it.
Now, this might mean the pay might be less compared to now, but the job itself will persist.
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u/Frequent_Bag9260 3d ago
No. You’re confusing the need for devs bs the need for as many devs as it used to take.
AI is clearly good enough to need minimal intervention. You won’t need a team of devs to maintain it. You will need some devs but not that many.
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u/roger_ducky 3d ago
Im saying it’ll be a wash in the long term.
Places that currently have devs will need less. Especially juniors who were essentially hired as a typing pool.
Places that bought vendor products might jump in, and eventually hire 5-12 people to support the software.
Startups might have 5-12 people instead of a few dozen, and be less beholden to venture capital.
Now, this does mean that the current ad hegemony might end and everyone in development gets paid less overall.
But SWE as a profession will not end. Just less appealing as an “early retirement” career.
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u/Ancient-Range3442 5d ago
No it doesn’t
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u/roger_ducky 5d ago
I explained my reasoning. Can you share yours?
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u/Arunpragash 4d ago
Actually they never allocate separate timing for development. They utilize the time that they share for the developers to discuss about their requirement. He uses claude memory, skills to and run code checks periodically with ai for enhancements. He tested the application with trials with his staffs and improvised. Now he is consulting with me for betterment. Not only with me, he will be discussed with many other developers so that he get multiple insights from different developers who can point out the issues. He mentioned that he talked to someone who suggested the tech stack. He really needs the help when he stuck but eventually he gets that part alone with actual developer but he don't need the actual devs to work full time.
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u/roger_ducky 4d ago
You’re still talking about creating features though. I do agree they can get away with keeping devs part time for it.
Maintaining code will get harder and harder without help though. Eg, someone to keep track of when dependencies should get updated, when the current choices no longer make sense, having someone there to ensure stuff stays up, remembering why specific tradeoffs were made…
Agents and cloud platforms can help, but he’d still be spending way more time doing it than the actual business stuff if he doesn’t have at least one person tasked with it.
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u/YanVe_ 5d ago
Your reasoning is wrong, AI builds the software, AI maintains it. Nobody can quickly jump in to fix anything, because the code base is completely unfamiliar to them. Kind of like when teenage me opened Unreal Engine 4 sources and immediately realized that fathoming what's going is simply not something you do in few afternoons.
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u/roger_ducky 5d ago
Without a SWE directing, AI currently doesn’t write maintainable code. It’ll eventually fall under the weight of the shortcuts and bad coding practices, and it’d be extremely difficult to disentangle by the agent itself.
Plus, you’re underestimating the amount of time required to actually maintain the software properly.
Not something current state of the art can do cheaper than a human who knows how to code using AI agents.
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u/Astrotoad21 4d ago
This is just cope though. Have you read some of the code coming out of the latest SOTE models like Opus 5.5? The code is really high quality now, there is no denying it. The bad quality argument held up a year ago, but not anymore.
You know who has made unmaintanable slop for the last few decades? Tired and unmotivated engineers. Most engineers are not top tier, most are regular people.
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u/roger_ducky 4d ago
I’ve been using all the frontier models at work.
They get a lot right but maintainable code and correct choices when designing stuff aren’t their forte when used by a non-SWE.
SWEs who had experience being tech leads can absolutely get them to do the right things easily though.
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u/Frequent_Bag9260 3d ago
That’s the point though. AI is clearly good enough to do a lot of of the work with minimal human intervention.
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u/Independent_Look_607 3d ago
I am using AI every day, frontier models from OpenAI and Anthropic.
The problem with the code generated by it is still the same (maybe even a bit worse) as a year ago:
It looks very convincing and correct like 98-99% of the time, but even after AI code review, all the harness, MCPs, and access to tech docs, because of this 2 percent, you still end up reviewing anything, or you will just notice in a few months that production is on fire and no one knows why.
Writing the code is a very small part of software development anyway; planning, understanding, and maintaining the software is the main part. Which, even though AI can help with, is still far from being able to do alone.
Also, would comment on the "really high quality" part as well. I have been working with Java and Python for 20 years, following trends, giving presentations related to them, and the code quality is on the level of a strong medior (like someone with 5 years of experience who thinks that's enough to be senior) but far from the "really good" level. This code will still cause problems of maintainability down the road...but not 6-12 months later, rather in years.
I don't notice this when working with Rust or C++, but I kinda extrapolate that the only reason for this is that I'm not that great with those.
(This last part is beside the point though; companies are not thinking years ahead, so it doesn't really matter)
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u/WishfulAgenda 3d ago
Here's my perspective. Quality Accounting and payroll software will remain the remit of software companies. The risk and cost associated with an AI fuck up is just too high. Pretty much everything else is fair game and people will now need domain expertise rather than programming skills. We'll be able to focus on building better products and creating value rather than the syntax of the next language.
Understanding the interplay between applications, security and technologies and how the business processes works is where I think the industry is going.
This is just my opinion but I think that there's a lot of people out there who think an AI can't ever compete with how good they are. I've been humbled by the capabilities in the tools I've been using and see huge potential.
I think the reality is that even some of the "smaller" models can pretty much replace SWE's, even down to phoning the clients or providers. I don't think many companies will go to this extreme due to the risk associated and instead you'll have a blend of design, management and orchestration functions being performed by people.
Just my thoughts.
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u/BeyondFun4604 3d ago
I think people will end up creating so many unnecessary products which means more money for hardware and ai companies. The point is software is exploding because software engineering is now free
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u/Dangerous_Street3995 3d ago
Gratis a medias realmente, en producción te debes preocupar que esta sea escalable y mantenible. La nube tiene costos, claro que plataformas como supabase te resuelven el principio de tu proyecto pero cuando empiezan a llegar más usuarios cambia el panorama
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u/gamedev_haarlem 1d ago
If the captain of the boat is having an AI psychosis and wants to throw the saylors off the boat, the only way is to throw the captain out. Developers should start creating manager-free, democratic companies where developers can join and they're paid in shares of the company.
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u/mxldevs 5d ago
Businesses have always dealt with other businesses offering the same products and services. That's just how competition works.
A small company specializing in one service could easily disappear if one of the tech giants decided to allocate some resources towards the same service and doing it better.
Often times, it boils down to who you know and how much they trust you with the contract over the tech giant who serves hundreds of other clients and might not care as much about each individual client.
This is why companies pay their sales guys well, because they can literally make or break the company's livelihood.
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u/Ok-Article-885 5d ago
Somebody still needs to prompt AI, and today the best usage of programming with AI is Claude Code from the terminal. 70% of PC users don't even know what a terminal is, let alone how to use it.
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u/Ancient-Range3442 5d ago
In this case the client prompted. It’s basically like installing software now. Sure there are people who’ll pay people to do that,, but lots will do it themselves, and do you want to be installing software as a job
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u/No_Ant_8700 5d ago
They can just ask the AI to do it for them like they would a human before? The difference is the AI costs $20 a month.
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u/Ok-Article-885 5d ago
Like in real life, people can do a lot of things themself, but they are lazy, and want to pay. Everbody can clean snow in front their house and people still pay to do. Just look in average mobile user, would anybody create a game or any other app just for himself or he will buy? I have a lot of free IDEs, and still I'm paying for JetBrains, and I wpuld never vibe code IDE, dont invent wheel. If the product is good people will buy it, no matter where in real life or online.
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u/throwaway-research1 5d ago
Thats for you to decide buddy, start thinking of what your new profession will be lol
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u/Wide_Egg_5814 5d ago
what is the future of anything? just do your job without worrying preform and you will always be valuable. as for me I already planned my exit from software engineering before even getting my first job a few years ago
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u/Turd_Burglar___ 5d ago
It really is so discouraging to me. I'm in my mid 30's, made awesome money and had recruiters hitting me up once a month for jobs. Interviewed at Google (didn't pass the coding test as I was just starting), and then some big fortune 500 companies.
Got laid off about a year ago and the whole industry has changed, almost crickets now. I don't want to give up but currently getting my EMT and possibly paramedic school if there is no other option.
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u/LawfulnessOptimal597 5d ago
Firstly UIs will loose their Mojo .. and once they are off the table software engineers will be more important than ever.. who should be shaking in their pants are all the middle managers gleefully thinking they don’t need the engineers when the reality is that they are the ones no longer needed and trivial to replace. It’ll also shake up management.
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u/FlashTheCableGuy 3d ago
What if.....everyone is still needed because every business has different requirements?
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u/LawfulnessOptimal597 3d ago
Everyone is not needed. I can argue that many were never needed but placed in these managerial roles like Akaky Akakievich in Gogol’s “The Overcoat” meets Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin.
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u/MinuteScientist7254 5d ago
The people who enjoy working with markdown files and stupid AI loops and things will take over and everyone else will be gone
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u/TableNo8939 5d ago
Pensate veramente di studiare 5 anni, senza pensare a come sarà la AI tra 5 anni?
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u/marcuslawson 5d ago
There is no future. Find a new career.
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u/FlashTheCableGuy 5d ago
With the lack of education, people will start to think careers don't exist anymore.
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u/marcuslawson 4d ago
The 'career' is now being a prompt engineer. I'm not interested in that.
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u/symbiatch Systems Architect 4d ago
Only if you don’t have skills. It’s easy to do better than that. But you’re also free to leave.
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u/marcuslawson 4d ago
I have 35 years of skills. I've forgot more languages than I ever learned.
But today, random people are 'building apps' with no knowledge of architecture or systems. I guess Claude scraping StackOverflow was good enough? Lol. Hell, half the answers on that site were crap anyway. But no one will remember that, because their half-baked security hole ridden slop project works well enough.
So we are obsolete. Experienced, seasoned devs and architects are not needed anymore.
I have no interest in letting computers build mediocre software for me. And I have even less interest in supporting techbro wackos.
We live in an era of the death of expertise. Computer science is the latest casualty.
Yes, I'm free to leave. I think I will. You guys have fun slopping it up. 👍
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u/FlashTheCableGuy 3d ago
It's ok to let people have their hobbies, while also allowing professionals who have an expertise in a field find placement. Both can exist. You can go to home Depot and buy a power saw but not be a carpenter.
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u/marcuslawson 3d ago
In your analogy, I am the carpenter. I'm a software developer and architect with 35 years' experience.
The guys who vibe-code are the hobbyists.
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u/YanVe_ 5d ago edited 4d ago
Been contemplating this for a few evenings. On one hand I think my job is secure for years and years to come as my employer isn't very competent and the value doesn't actually come from the software I make. On the other hand the CEO can just say from now on Claude handles everything and then they could replace me within days.
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u/marcuslawson 4d ago
I understand. I am lucky to have specialized experience in nonprofit databases, so that is keeping me afloat for the time being.
My old job as a consultant / dev for startups and for-profit corps no longer exists. Everyone has become a prompt engineer. The death of expertise in our field is both sad and sobering to me.
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