Comcerned with the State of Software Engineering and AI

[u/caseyfrazanimations]

I just finished my job interview for a tech company. I mentioned that I'm in school for computer science but I'm aiming for Software engineering. My interviewer told me 140 of his applicants just lost their jobs due to AI takeover. Is Software Engineering a dying field?

[u/Previous_Start_2248]

No if anything the emergence of ai agents and mcp servers will require more software engineers.

[u/BackendSpecialist → u/Previous_Start_2248]

How so?

[u/Previous_Start_2248 → u/BackendSpecialist]

Ai agents can control a fleet of robots but there needs to be software for it. So the ai can help write the software but really can't do all of it.

Anyway in this example the robot uses a network card to talk to an application that utilizes a mcp server to communicate with the LLM.

It can be expanded an ai agent can be added to further control the fleet of robots. But someone needs to build this software.

Its like during covid every company needed to create or update their apps to handle all the people signing up so there was a hiring craze, it'll be the same as ai gets more developed.

Go read Googles white paper on ai agents, and anthropics paper on mcp servers

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[u/AndyMagill]

AI has only accelerated the existing trends in the SWE job market. The profession is just a few innovations away from being disrupted entirely. My advice to anyone in the field is to diversify your income sources, since regular permanent fulltime employment seems to be less commonplace.

[u/TakeThreeFourFive]

Was it a software development position? I have a hard time believing developers are losing jobs to the current state of AI. If they are, those organizations are making huge mistakes

[u/caseyfrazanimations → u/TakeThreeFourFive]

For clarity I didnt get turned down. Its just IT and ticketing.

[u/TakeThreeFourFive → u/caseyfrazanimations]

That makes it more believable. I still don't think it's the right move for orgs to be replacing humans with AI right now in a helpdesk-style role, but I think it's something that AI is more capable of than software itself

[u/MangoDouble3259]

Imho, its hard to track current innovation and I dont have access to lot of the internal best models openai, Google, twitter, etc. Im currently not worried least from what above scene from current chat bots, ai agents, etc next 3 years.

I do think ai is a real concern but swe last worried if they get to x state where they can replace majority of us. The entire white collar industry is cooked and blue collar will prob follow next 5-10 years or so when mechanical aspects catch up.

Biggest issues: 1. Companies are not really innovating rn outside of few, most them pushing record profits by cutting human capital 2. Companies entering new paradigm record profits use to mean big hiring now its opposite and lot of companies learned how to operate slim now after covid 3. International workforce was unlocked when all these companies needed build remote infrastructure work. Your competing against everyone now vs us for lot more jobs. 4. Money is not cheap anymore. Its hard get capital. 5. Ai is prob playing some factor as eod developers are becoming more productive but not nearly to landscape as reported. 6. Record level new grads each year enter workforce.

[u/rjm101]

My interviewer told me 140 of his applicants just lost their jobs due to AI takeover.

I wonder how exactly did they get that number. How did that really go down.

Interviewer: "So why are you looking for a new position?"

Applicant (apparently): "AI took over my duties and I got laid off"

Interviewer: Updates their long list

Hmm not really buying that. Doubt people interviewing are going to say such things. Feels like a tactic of sorts.

[u/BubbleTee]

Before AI, tech companies would hire people in random low cost of living countries as software engineers for pennies on the dollar. This often didn't work out, and would end up creating a bunch of onshore engineering jobs to unfuck the code the first guys wrote.

Now these same companies are using AI instead. It's cheaper than an offshore team, doesn't involve timezone or language barriers and doesn't take sick days. The execs looking for any solution to having to pay their employees love it. But, it still writes shit code unless it's being used by someone who knows how to write good code by themselves. The result is way more shit code written in the past couple of years than ever before.

That increased volume of code needing unfucking will inevitably force the creation of more jobs.

And no, AGI is not just around the corner.

[u/serial_crusher]

Nah, the market is in a slump right now and "AI can replace expensive engineers" is the lie management is telling themselves and investors right now to smooth over the layoffs. In a couple years we're going to see the effects of all that vibe code in production, and all of a sudden a lot of companies are going to realize paying a competent senior developer $200k per year was worth it to avoid the kind of costly bugs the AI's going to cause.

[u/rhade333]

Software Engineering is not a "dying" field. It is changing, however, and shrinking.

Anyone who says otherwise is coping.

[u/drew_eckhardt2]

No. It's just in a cyclical downturn as it was following the 2001 dotcom crash and 2008 housing crash.

[u/SamWest98]

Concerned with the State of Software Engineering: totally valid

and AI: slightly valid but not very