They pick me because I have solid references, I’m kind to them (I’m genuinely grateful for the relationships I build), I listen well, and I prioritize their experience over my convenience. I’m able to take on a project at any stage in its lifecycle, take control if necessary, and get it where it needs to me without them needing to worry how it happens. They can trust me to know what they need and solve their problems, even stepping in to figure out what their problems are if they’re unsure.
Sure, it requires programming skills. I have nearly 15 years of experience now, and it’s relatively broad. I’ve done a bunch of stuff, but nothing exceptionally deep or difficult.
Without communication skills I would be nowhere, though. Without a human face, anticipation of human needs, empathy, genuine concern, and all of that — no one would hire me for anything interesting or important. My references wouldn’t be so positive. No one would trust me with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, let alone what feels like the fate of their start up on a tight timeline.
Until AI can do any of that, I’m not too worried. I know my clients are looking for a human being they can trust just as much as they’re looking for a product to be built or a problem to be solved. Many of them are extremely nervous and uncertain, and a machine would likely fail to assuage their worries.
Perhaps it will get there sooner than I think. I don’t know. My advice to programmers is to focus on the human side of what you do though, and the humans using the products you build. There’s not much else that matters; at the end of the day, we’re humans building things for humans.
I suspect long before AI can out-human me, I’ll be using it to enhance my development process yet still relying almost exclusively on face to face communication to get my most important work done.