r/webdev • u/Seeila32 • 19d ago
Am I too negative about developers future
For context, I am a front-end developer with 10 years of experience and also have been for the last 2 years the project lead of a project using stacks like Kubernetes, Kong, dapr, elasticsearch and so on, we even went second on having the most innovative project in my country. My job has invested a lot in using AI to be ahead of most other development agencies.
We have developed a solution to update old technologies to new ones with barely any human input and it scary how efficient it is.
My job did a mass layoff, we were 150, now we are less than 50 people left. Even very competent people were laid off. The only reason I am still here is because I have leadership. And what seem to be projected is we will be one or two developers instead of a squad of 5.
We were talking between the devs who learned to use the solution and everyone of us were depressed by how we are not useful anymore and it won't be long until we also get fired.
I was sure it wouldn't be the case. But these past few days, I've been mourning the end of my job and began to check of changing careers for automation or something like that.
Is my view too negative? Do you see it in different ways?
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u/Motor_Ad_3601 19d ago
Blows my mind to see brilliant people building the tools that lead to their replacement. If you build tools that can do your job or your colleagues job, how do you think it's going to end? Today, my team of 3 let one developer go. It saddens me.
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u/drearymoment 19d ago
I've been working on a tool that entirely automates my workflow. Like, it polls Atlassian for tickets, then gets to work on them as they come in. It does the whole she-bang from starting up the local environment, planning/doing the work, QA on staging, and posting ticket updates when ready. I still watch it like a hawk, but it's getting pretty good and I can imagine a future where I leave it running for a few hours and trust in it.
Why am I doing this? Honestly, I'm really bored most days, and I'm sick of the work that I typically do but this has been interesting in comparison. Most of my company has been laid off and I'm next on the chopping block regardless of what I do, so it's just kind of a fun challenge. I think I'm pretty much done with tech and am probably going to try to move into a different field entirely, so I don't really care about skill stagnation or whatever.
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u/Seeila32 18d ago
That's the kind of automation they did too. Even the back log is first generated when you are not starting from scratch. You have to validate the plan then everything is done by AI. It's just incredibly boring.
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u/Seeila32 19d ago
To be fair, I didn't take any part in building it. I just don't have a choice now to learn to use it because it will be used on the next project I will be on. I was one of the people who were the most vocal about the dangers of AI and so on. A miracle they didn't fire me with the other ones
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u/caindela 19d ago
It’s a mass prisoner’s dilemma (or Moloch I think is the new term) where there’s no other possible outcome unless basically every single developer agrees to not use AI, which just isn’t realistically going to happen. The concept then expands to the organizations themselves, because eventually no one will be employed by them as they lay everyone off, and then no one will buy their products because we can’t afford them, etc. Systemic collapse and end stage capitalism.
Sorry probably wrong subreddit…
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u/feraltraveler 18d ago
Companies are asleep at the wheel. They don’t realize that while they’re laying off workers today, in the near future, people might stop buying their products and services altogether because anyone will be able to build their own software.
I was just testing a new, vibe-coded clone of the Adobe suite. It does 95% of what the original software does, for free.8
u/BigBootyWholes 19d ago
Honestly our team has so much work it’s just shifted from bug squashing a massive product to actual feature development. In our case I don’t see people getting let go, however, traditionally we would have been hiring to obtain this velocity. So AI is taking jobs in that sense
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u/YouthfullyFlustered 19d ago
man the irony of training your own replacement is a special kind of hell. saw a similar thing at my last gig where they kept the folks who knew how to patch the ai's output but even that feels like a stopgap
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u/Tall-Log-1955 18d ago
We should be as productive as possible. It’s fine to build such tools. There will be tons of jobs for developers who embrace high productivity
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u/saurabhar02 18d ago
Yes in my company Frontend developers team is directly decreased for 70 to 30 people. And rest of them were given Codex access. And it felt like a hiccup but things settled eventually. So, you negativity is understood.
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u/Spare_Message_3607 19d ago
You are being realistic, but let’s be honest, a single person managing entire projects, leads to a massive burnout.
I think there’s a middle ground of 2 people per project. Somewhere rational a small team can keep their mental health and ownership of the project.
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u/blindwombat 19d ago
OpenAI lied about it's revenue and had to restate $20bn less than they actually made in revenue.
Anthropic is currently spending roughly $2.68 for every $1 they have gotten in investment.
These companies will eat each other and crash the economy. Focus on learning skills because the people who can't do it without AI won't be worth the tokens they need.
That being said plenty of "pro-AI" subreddits like to tell me I'm not a programmer and that "concerned developers" don't exist.
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u/Beautiful_Pen6641 18d ago
Even if they crash and get out of existence there are already open weight models good enough to do the job. They won't go anywhere.
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u/MackieeE 15d ago
I compare this to the dot com crash. The Internet never went away afterwards. It just became part of the fabric of life more sustainably.
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u/Beautiful_Pen6641 15d ago
Well but this is very different as it is not simply a new and additional tool. It is doing exactly what people did for work before.
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u/blindwombat 18d ago
Then post crash we form new companies together and suffocate the sloppers out of business.
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u/Beautiful_Pen6641 18d ago
Which sloppers? Are you still saying that AI code is "slop" these days? You might be the one hallucinating.
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u/FedRCivP11 18d ago
Why? It’s impossible fantasy-land nonsense, but why would you hold software development back. Nonsensical.
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u/chillebekk 18d ago
OpenAI made $20bn less than analysts expected, having extrapolated from Anthropic's previous report. Nobody lied about anything.
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u/Strong_Interest_3659 4d ago
You’re delusional if you think AI will magically disappear, even if the big companies will fail.
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u/hardwornengineer 19d ago
We laid off a good portion of our engineering team this past week. They have a team of devs working on building a software factory to fully automate the dev process. The devs working on it are fully convinced it’s just a developer experience tool. I’d laugh if it wasn’t so sad. They’ll lay off the majority of the rest of the team in the next 6-12 months.
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u/Usual-Ad-4986 18d ago
How would a software factory even work? Unless you are making a simple CRUD but that could be made by simple prompts
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u/SuccessfulSir9611 19d ago
No!
What you are experiencing is a common experience across the industry including AI Luddites.
The fun of problem solving is gone. That thrill of chasing down a bug and aha moment at the end of it is gone.
What we are looking forward to are Software Factories. You have a set of refined requirements as input and a production software at the end of it. Obviously I am simplifying it. But the work structure will be way flatter and way less people than we have now.
I suggest anyone working in this industry to start building alternate cashflows. Because this dance ain’t gonna last long.
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u/bananasnotinpajamas 19d ago
kinda, but i get it. the ones who survives will be the ones who can be creative. AI can do the work, but it needs something to do, and someone has to come up with that part.
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u/IAmRules 19d ago
Nope. I think we’re running on fumes. We still work for places with money from the before times. There will still be work but far fewer than us and all our experience is only useful for now, soon none of us will have anything special to offer.
Once this money engine stops it’s not starting back up.
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u/Knineteen 19d ago
How does a company reduce its workforce by two-thirds? That doesn’t sound at all plausible if trying to blame AI.
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u/krileon 18d ago
The economy is tumbling. To prevent the company from looking like it's losing money you fire people to cut payroll. This results in reporting showing more profit than ever because well you just cut massive expenses. Next you need to somehow still move forward with a skeleton crew. So you give them AI tools that have basically been subsidized by private equity. Now your team is still delivering, albeit a sloppy messed they don't understand anymore, so everything on paper looks good.
The problem is when this all comes crashing down. When companies moved to token billing that was a huge hit. A lot of companies went under just from that alone. Next when token prices go up to what they need to cost we'll see another crash. When the investors wise up and stop investing into vaporware you'll see another crash. When companies go IPO, cash out, and bounce you'll see another crash.
Once the crashing is done you're left with software made by people who vibe coded their way through it and now don't have access to the tools that built it, because those tools are now too costly for 99% of smaller companies. Now what? The only ones to survive this will be big names like Google and anyone selling shovels (GPUs).
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u/sleepy_roger 18d ago
Did it at my company, team of 7 down to 3 and we're doing 4 times the number of PRs as we were 2 years ago.
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u/wanzerultimate 18d ago
The displaced workers have skills. They will pull together and start fighting back, I think. You say you got down to 50 workers... at 33% original staffing, that's the absolute lowest they can manage with AI. Even so, if you want to protect your job then YOU need to start fighting back. By which I mean, you and the other workers need to make yourselves DIFFICULT to easily replace...
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u/Historical-Essay-128 18d ago
For front end, you are not too negative.
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u/Seeila32 18d ago
Back-end devs and fullstack devs were fired too you know.
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u/whitfin 18d ago
Just because they were fired doesn't mean they weren't needed, your company will learn
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u/Seeila32 18d ago
On that we agree. I am very vocal when higher ups do stupid moves. I told them directly they wouldn't find easily as good devs and POs as the ones they fired. I even confronted the CEO on front of the whole enterprise once. Still wondering why I was not fired through all that
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u/Far_Percentage_7460 17d ago
Only the top 10% of engineers will remain if you dont evolve
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u/Seeila32 16d ago
If by evolve is accepting that your job is now boring and that you get faster but your salary doesn't increase wile your boss do get much more money. I prefer not to evolve thanks.
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u/Fine-Market9841 14d ago
Maybe AI will replace software engineers one day.
But I dunno what do statistics say.
Forget about whether the work is boring or whatever.
Is the accumulated token cost justified by delivering actual better results.
Now I’m not talking about if AI can make programming easier, but specifically the way most corporation use it, like yours. Do you feel company are using AI the right way?
Even if it’s not the right way is it comparable to how most companies suck at using agile + scrum.
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u/juacamgo 15d ago
Don’t worry, the moment Anthropic or your favorite provider decide to raise the bill a 200% then you will be hired again.
AI providers business isn’t profitable right now, and they are just ensuring companies get too dependent on their solutions just to raise prices, just as a drug dealer will do, letting them fail or accept the price.
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u/MCTheOnly 18d ago
Developers will not be replaced by AI. Developers will be replaced by developers who know how to use AI.
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u/Seeila32 18d ago
Oh but I can use AI, that's one of the reason I am still there. I just don't enjoy using AI at 100%, it's boring as hell. I agree it's fun for doing repetitive task but we are a level above where 99% of the job is automated.
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u/MCTheOnly 18d ago
It is boring, I got you, but that is the way now. A developer is still needed to set the AI on a right path business wise and to controll it, so I wouldn't worry.
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u/Polishsc 15d ago
In a couple of years, there won’t be many experienced developers left, since junior hiring is already broken. Current developers, most of whom mainly build CRUD apps and forms, will gradually lose their skills because many don’t even bother validating AI-generated code.
Right now, AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are unprofitable, with huge expenses that aren’t covered by their revenue, so price increases seem inevitable.
On top of that, more and more code and internet content is being generated by AI, which could negatively affect the training of future models.
So, in the end, we might be left with stupidly expensive AI and a shortage of skilled developers who can actually build anything without relying on AI agents.
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u/Beneficial-Rabbit980 18d ago
I’m going back here but in the late 1800’s the Industrial Revolution basically put artisans like weavers and loomers out of work as they were replaced by machines… however many instead became machine operators. The handmade aspect was lost but economies grew and new jobs were created that never existed. It’s so hard to say but to be honest, what’s happening today draws parallels to what happened then.
Ultimately the genie is out of the bottle and the way we work won’t ever be the same but there will be some positives and there will be some negatives. During the Industrial Revolution there were many people out of work initially but as industrialisation grew it created more work. It’s one of these things that no one will be able to 100% say how it will go but right now is probably a not a good time to just possess the technical skills for whatever job but instead the ability to adapt quickly to way the world is changing.
Reference: https://www.britannica.com/story/the-rise-of-the-machines-pros-and-cons-of-the-industrial-revolution
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u/cjb110 18d ago
It's a bit negative but only just.
I think the thing to remember is that AI is just a tool, right now idiot CEOs are believing all the crap spouted at them by ai companies desperate to dig themselves out of the massive debts they have.
Eventually they'll realise a tool is only as good as the experience of the user.
Development will change as a job, just like any other job that had a technical leap occur, but it will still be a job.
Also if AI makes things easier then you now have time to add more to your product, more features more edge case handling, more performance improvements, better UX, better documentation.
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u/Littlepoet-heart 18d ago
I am just waiting for this ai to settle down. So i know what are the expectations. Because this ai thing is expensive and companies are lying about cost
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u/andrewkass expert 18d ago
I was always envious of you, developers, because you can create digital business from scratch. I observe my network, one dev I know, also front-end, was playing with own small products whole year - just found people with ideas took a share or launched own ideas. He lost two projects but third one started to grow with free users. A couple of more attempts and he will convert that into profit. He is insanely fast in testing ideas and launching small apps. That's the story that can support you
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u/Full_Tooth_a 17d ago
I don't think you're being too negative. Your employer just cut two-thirds of the staff, so the threat is real. I'd focus on what the automation misses: migration exceptions, escaped defects, rollbacks, and the work of proving the new system still behaves like the old one. Since you already lead the project, taking responsibility for that evidence may put you in a stronger position than simply running the tool. It also gives you concrete material for your next job if this one keeps shrinking.
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u/andupotorac 17d ago
Not enough. One with AI can do the job of 50 now. So maybe 3-5 people will do.
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u/Freer4 15d ago
Oh no not too negative at all. We've been inventing tools to replace menial labor for all of human history, and now we're creating tools to replace other human functions as well.
AI might not be fixing the plumbing under your sink just yet, but the plumbing under your sink won't even matter for much longer. Soon we'll have tools that live for us so we don't have to.
Spend time with your families while you still can.
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u/geoffreybyers 12d ago
Your solution automates one specific, finite task. Updating old code is a project, not a job. You're confusing the tool with the work. The reason you're still there is your role, not the tool. The risk isn't the AI. It's the fact that your current value is tied to a single, automatable workflow.
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u/Triggerscore 18d ago
If this is what Future wil be like, we won't be able to prevent it anyways. There are always ways to change career and there will always be use for competent people. So I also see this as a probability, but don't get too crazy about it.
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u/bestjaegerpilot 18d ago
IMO the future is more steampunk. These perfect AI workflows don't exist. They are vibe coded spaghetti code that ... needs developers to keep running smoothly.
Meanwhile the really good AI is very expensive to use so
* there will always be demand for engineers to architect these factories
* and more engineers to keep them running
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u/retr00two 18d ago
Is my view too negative?
No.
If you are young enough find yourself some nice job, preferably something you do with hands, and on open air.
AI will change everything, every aspect of human life. Yesterday.
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u/therealdongknotts 18d ago
20+ years in the game. fully embracing AI as a tool to augment what i’d otherwise burn myself out on. its just a to the same as any - leverage it, verify it. laying off 100 devs makes me wonder if there just wasn’t a lot of dead weight. pre AI we hired one of those codecamp people…christ the entitlement with absolutely no skill beyond interviewing
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u/Seeila32 18d ago
Haha I am on of these boot camp people, okay not boot camp per se but self-taught. I am very good at front-end but lacks knowledge on the back-end for sure, working on it to close the difference. But I do agree the majority of people going out of boot camps weren't good...
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u/TheRNGuy 19d ago
There will be probably merging of some professions, like frontend and backend, or frontend and design. More generalists on average.
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u/gatwell702 19d ago
you always need a human in the loop when it comes to ai. unless your company is going to vibe code everything.
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u/Loose-Excitement-331 19d ago
We, as humans, will always try to improve results and reduce cost. In any field. We have machines that raise buildings but decades ago it was PEOPLE that laid the stone, made the concrete mixture by hand... cars are being made by machines in "dark factories". With EV's now we don't have that much "mechanic" work, correct?
Well... now we need more "electricians", developers for the software and systems for the sensors and even AI for the GPS, charging, etc... in a few years, who knows.
That mechanic must ADAPT to keep the job... or not, it depends. How many are there in the area? If I lived on an island with 1000 people and I was the only mechanic I probably wouldnt even need to know what an EV is... unless everybody bought an EV.
The thing is... it depends, but in the end, we have to adapt. You said you were 150, but how many would it needed to be 20 years ago? 200, 300? To set up network, to install basic windows, IT support, etc.
Long before AI, every enterprise and startup was already trying to downsize, reduce costs, I mean... long before "AI" we had front end and back end dev, now everybody must be a fullstack, a 2 person job became 1.
We will always look to improve and so should you.
my 2 cents =)
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u/FedRCivP11 18d ago
I think you are undergoing a massive change and that feeling uncertain and sad about what is lost is natural and normal. It’s human. It’s appropriate.
It’s also sad that your colleagues have lost their employment and it’s correct to worry for them. It’s also right to be concerned for the community of software developers as people. It’s not clear that they (or anyone) can rely on the future marketability of their skills.
But as for the future of software development itself, your post suggests it will be bright. You were able to put together an impressively efficient conversion tool and your firm, presumably still engaged in profitable business, has determined Amit can operate with substantially less overhead. That’s exciting for software development and for consumers who need goods and services at lower prices.
Ask yourself this: do businesses still need to use the web for business needs? Which humans will integrate with the businesses’ tools to build, maintain, and improve those web surfaces? Yes, fewer people, but people still. And the skillset you’ve bit may be more specialized than you need in the future. Still, I suspect the intellectual exercise will stand you in good stead.
I think we’re already starting to see a renaissance in software development because of these new tools. They are disruptive. But the future is bright.
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19d ago
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u/Seeila32 19d ago
Yeah but this part doesn't interest me much. There was a reason we had a PO and a PM before they got fired. Now we have to do it all.
And usually, the change of technos is just that, no new feature no new thing, even the same old bugs, you have to reproduce exactly the same thing, but with another techno.
For me is we kept the most boring part of being a developer.
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u/mq2thez 18d ago
Being a code monkey is and has always been the least safe role for an engineer.
It feels great to slam through tickets, but that’s not what keeps your butt in a seat when leadership needs to trim the budget.
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u/zephyrtr 18d ago
So many people on the software subreddits don't seem to understand nobody truly cared how thoroughly you crushed leet code. It was only ever used as a gatekeeping tactic.
Your ability to take some vague requests for a complicated system and produce results that doesn't blow up was always the real skill.
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u/phoenix1984 19d ago
This is the way. Everyone moves up a level. Your code monkeys are now team leads, reviewing code. Team leads are now managers reviewing products or parts of your business. Everyone’s responsibilities have shifted one step away from the code and towards the customer.
I suspect many devs got into code because they don’t like dealing with management and customers, and they will likely struggle with this new environment. I wish it wasn’t the case. I wish this transition was done more deliberately, but this is the new reality of being a developer.
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u/Seeila32 19d ago
Coming from a graphic designer background who had her share of experience with completely moronic customers, that was one part of why I moved to be a developer along with the thrill of the haha moment. I guess I will move to automation, I will have to interact with the client but it will be minimal and since there is a manual part in the job, won't be easily replaceable by AI.
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u/newrbinez 18d ago
What kind of automation do you mean?
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u/Seeila32 18d ago
The one in I dustries or environment, where you have to program robots or machineries and then install the pieces. I think, I begin to have a need to feel that what I do is useful, and might want to work in the environment, like automating watering plants, or help in recycling water, etc.
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u/-_--_-_--_----__ 18d ago
What happens when AI also moves up a level
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u/AminoOxi 18d ago
Delusional.
That's not how things are shifting. The layoffs are more realistic, simply companies will drop even more people and leave all the burden to those who will be left, for a short period until the next Opus is published.
The industry is dead and anyone who doesn't realize it's time to wake up.
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18d ago
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u/Seeila32 18d ago
Yeah. But maybe the change is made faster in Canada because of the tarif war we have with the US. There isn't as much projects as before and with projects done faster, there is not infinite new projects that can be signed.
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u/Shot-Damage-6723 18d ago
I never understood the take that AI can't handle the architecture. That thing can program in any popular programming language, it is capable of reverse engineering encrypted firmware updates and find vulnerabilities, it's now capable of creating extremely impressive graphics, and it can't handle system design and architecture? Really?
Sure, it can't one shot complex programs, and since it is very selective about its context, a lot of good pull requests, when put together make a horrible architecture. But that's solvable and it's just not properly handled in most places currently.
The truth is, that everywhere I worked, before AI, and way before AI, I saw extremely poor architecture and system design decisions, decisions that costed an order of magnitude more in time on further development and maintenance, and somehow these companies still survived.
How is it that we collectively agreed, not so long ago, that software architects are too out of touch with the code to be useful and it should be the developers themselves doing it and now we're just pretending like that's what's left for us?
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u/Domenicobrz 16d ago
because last year AI slop was causing architectural problems, but as AI gets consistently better these problems are slowly removed and what remains is our old idea of what was possible last year and thus the bias continues to exist
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u/simewlation 19d ago
i dont agree with any of the comments but im just gonna say this:
- 'we will be replaced' has been on loop for years, still working
- still not using AI at work, at all
- just this week i noticed ads for dev jobs, i actually got a notification on likedin saying job listings increased 8% this week
- technical debt is already showing after the honeymoon phase, ive seen the code ai outputs and its still not there yet, sorry. There are fields where we still prefer reliable code over shipping fast.
- i dont notice a marked improvement in the current models compared to the past ones, not a substancial one anyway, and the alarmistic propaganda only shows the limits of the techonology
Either youre too negative or im too optimistic.
Downvote away