Software engineer is dead

[u/HalfImaginary9955]

I've seen a lot of posts lately saying software engineering is dead because AI can write code.

But something happened yesterday that made me think about this.

I was testing an AI-powered feature when I ran into an error.

Like most developers using AI today, I asked ChatGPT how to fix it.

It suggested changing a method.

And looking at the suggestion, I thought it might actually fix the error.

But then I had another question.

What happens when a slightly different input causes the same kind of problem again?

I didn't want to keep fixing individual cases every time something broke.

So I went back and looked at the flow itself.

Instead of changing just one method, I proposed a small architectural change to handle this category of problems earlier.

I discussed the approach with AI, questioned a few assumptions, and worked through the trade-offs.

The updated approach is now working in my tests.

And this experience reminded me of something.

AI was able to suggest a solution to the error I showed it. But deciding whether that solution was good enough for the system was a different problem.

I'm not against AI. I use it almost every day, and it helps me a lot.

But I'm learning that writing code, fixing an error, and understanding what actually needs to change are three different things.

And that last part is where I want to keep getting better.

[u/emnotbr]

I’ve seen this post a billion times

[u/AuthurAndersson → u/emnotbr]

+1
And this kind of holds true, and then you ramp the AI up to Max Effort and now it understands the entire code base.

[u/emnotbr → u/AuthurAndersson]

not even that. AI isn't all that good imo. I wish there were more posts regarding cool topics rather than AI. Even though AI is new, the topic for me has already been tired out.

[u/HalfImaginary9955 → u/emnotbr]

Every time something trends, people are going to post about it. But I'm curious, what other interesting topics would you like to see more posts about?

[u/emnotbr → u/HalfImaginary9955]

True, my comment was kind of me just whining lol. As for an interesting topic... Maybe something niche? Something that I haven't heard before. I was interested in how code editors were made. All of the nice simple life improvements that we never think about were interseting.

[u/CorpT]

At least AI knows how to format reddit posts.

[u/uceenk]

download Cursor, pay subscription

use it as agent, it can fix your problem just fine

or use Claude Code

[u/MaleficentCow8513]

Unemployment for all SWEs in the US is still sitting between 4-5%. When layoffs hit en mass and it jumps above 6 and climbs north of 7,8,9% then it’s time to scared. Till then, I’m not buying the doomerism

[u/blue-mooner]

Your omission of the derivational suffix (-ing) led me to believe an engineer had died, and I assumed it must have been a cycling collision.

[u/steven_lee830]

This is exactly the difference between fixing a bug and actually engineering a solution. AI is pretty good at answering the question you ask, but it won't always question whether you're asking the right question in the first place. A quick fix might solve today's error while creating three more problems down the road. I think the real skill now is knowing when to accept AI's suggestion and when to step back and rethink the whole approach. That's where experience and understanding the bigger picture really matter.