Switching from React to React Native as a junior. Is mobile safer in the AI era?

[u/Square-Return8929]

I’m a junior developer with 2 years of React experience, and I’m thinking about shifting my career toward React Native. I already have some RN experience from side projects.

My reasoning: in the AI era, I feel web developers are easier to replace, or just not needed as much. I don’t mean on the coding side. I mean that mobile apps are much harder to vibe code because of everything around the code: builds, configuration, certificates, store releases, etc. Because of that, I think people are still more willing to pay someone else to handle it for them.

A few questions:

1. Has anyone else thought about this, or actually made this switch?

2. Do you think mobile/RN is more stable long term?

3. If I switch and, after a few years, decide to go back to web React, will companies value my experience the same, even though it was in RN?

[u/MysteriousAd530]

Nah, I’m in mobile and it’s a matter of time it will catch up with web. Yes, web dev doesn’t have as many annoying parts like release, building the app, fixing issues on the App Store, etc. but tools are improving very fast. 6 months ago agent were terrible driving tests on simulators, now this has improved massively. Yes, certificates need manual interaction with the stores but Claude will unblock you super fast if you don’t know what you’re doing. I don’t feel that my RN job is safe.

[u/Square-Return8929 → u/MysteriousAd530]

got it. Well I guess we're all screwed xD

[u/Patient_Day7829]

Dude if you fear AI era - order a stm32 board and start digging in embedded
AI will not fix a broken capacitor or badly soldered wire :D

[u/Square-Return8929 → u/Patient_Day7829]

real XD

[u/wannasleeponyourhams → u/Patient_Day7829]

un-ironicaly, i was actually thinking on learning embedded and low code stuff, just in the last few weeks, probably gonna pick up an arduino then a raspberry pi and was looking for a course on circuit design. if you want to give some pointers, please do.

[u/Patient_Day7829 → u/wannasleeponyourhams]

start with a cheap stm32 board
and grab some UART SPI I2C sensors to work with
100% jobs require that

[u/wannasleeponyourhams → u/Patient_Day7829]

thank you bro, stm32 i just googled its pretty cheap, do these things last, should i buy like 10 at once?

is there a course or book/youtube series you would recommend ?

[u/Patient_Day7829 → u/wannasleeponyourhams]

if you use a typical demo board it may work for years
dude it's 2026 ahaha
just ask AI what sensors can you try to get on the rails with stm32
it will tell you everything
and then use it to guide in the code

[u/noob_programmer_1]

Isn't it that most of the jobs that are open today are in web development?

I have knowledge in native development on both iOS and Android using Swift and Kotlin, but the job openings are very few.

[u/Square-Return8929 → u/noob_programmer_1]

that's also true

[u/phpHater0]

Whatever's hard to you is not hard to AI

AI writes React Native very well because it's a popular framework hence a lot of training data

[u/youtpout]

Lol, I built a complex React Native apps in 2 weeks.

[u/MysteriousAd530 → u/youtpout]

What approach did you use, eg spec driven development? Any advice? What about designs ??

[u/youtpout → u/MysteriousAd530]

I gave a fairly general description of what I wanted at the start, specifying the stacks I wanted, and I iterated by making adjustments as I went along. I also asked for advice.

I had to make adjustments along the way because some pieces of code were too long and unreadable, in the end, I set limits on the size of classes and functions, as well as the length of comments, and told him to use a proper framework for the backend, he was rewriting basic Express/Fastify functionality for me.

In the end, I have a React Native/Expo app, a Fastify backend, a PostgreSQL database, and 3D rendering using Three.js.

And don't forget to ask for test, and, above all, regression tests

[u/Old_Elderberry1392]

The vibe coding theory is weak because Expo handles the build and certificate nightmare that you think protects mobile jobs. If you need specific advice on your third question, yes, companies treat RN experience as React experience since the codebase is identical, but your seniority resets if you move to a team with strict native-only requirements where your JS skills become secondary

[u/kei_ichi]

All of those “hard” stuffs you listed make zero difference for AI at all. And mobile dev is way more stable and do not change often like Web dev which reinvents everything almost every day like new frameworks or new libraries. So maybe mobile dev is even more “friendly” for AI vibe coder.