As a 42 years old web developper, this situation gives me headaches. I feel both with new superpowers and dangerously threatened. I feel we will need much less developpers and yet I can imagine some years where a developper will be able to handle much larger projects.
In some ways, having a superpower is not all that great because then you are forced by the prisoner's dilemma to use it. And if you think about it, it comes at a cost: a higher mental strain over a long period of time.
To use a physical analogy: a workout machine at the gym is very likely to assist you in targeting specific muscles compared to just lifting stuff you need to lift, but it also allows you to push that specific muscle group harder and thus increase the chances of injury to that muscle group precisely because it's so targeted. I think AI is like that with the brain.
(I'll add that it's perfectly possible to work out safely at the gym with lots of equipment. But I've spent years at the gym and I've seen a ton of injuries because the temptation to push a specific muscle group hard is there. And, AI is much worse because with AI, there is an economic incentive to push harder, whereas at the gym it's in your best interest to dial back...only sometimes people like to show off to their gym buddies.)
Aside (shower thought):
A little of a tangent, but I have always felt that the weight belt is kind of odd in that it has become completely accepted to use one for the deadlift and squat. Like, why did we decide that this one form of brace is acceptable but others enhancements are not "real" weightlifting? Why not an incline plane? Why not a pulley?
I'm not at all arguing for or against the usage of the weight belt. I just find it odd that it has become so accepted; seems curious how we decided to draw the line here and not there.
That, and I miss coding... but... this new thing is its own puzzle, and I still do lots of pseudo-code and such, to talk to the AI, which kind of scratches the itch.
Not too far after it will be coders controlling agents who control agents who do the work.
We're in for a very tumultuous few years
I'm sure there is still a pot for really high quality stuff but it's a tradeoff a lot of companies don't care. But the interfaces - they aren't ugly, they're very usable and complete, which is the main reason I think web dev is in trouble. It'd take me 10x the time to do it myself.
I'm not even sure what you're talking about when you say "web apps", because the kind of "web apps" that have kept SWEs employed are created by large organizations that have large requirements. You sound like you don't know what you're talking about. Companies also aren't going to just stop growing, iterating and improving, which requires expertise. Im worth more than ever with AI, my value as a SWE has only been increasing.
You people seriously need to stop using LLMs because your brains are devolving like taxi cabs drivers who had parts of their brains responsible for navigation atrophy after the advent of GPS.
For the record, I hardly use these models. I've simply seen that they can replace existing web apps. That hurts the market for web devs, most orgs aren't building out large apps they are building out smallish ones and generative models do that today.
Don't go around telling people their careers are in peril when you clearly have no clue what you're talking about. What do you expect?
I work in an environment where we can vibecode 4/5 of our web apps because they are either small enough or the perf doesn't matter. Or, I've looked under the hood and these are writing endpoints that would take me 3x the amount of time it would take it to use the same libraries. You say it's divorced from reality, I'm saying it's just what I've directly observed.
I'm glad it doesn't affect you, but you don't have any kind of statistical measurement (nor do I) to know how much of the market this impacts. I do know for a lot of the web dev I did pereviously, I could do it viea these models today.
I'd say the first part is right but the second part is statistically incorrect. I would even expand from "web-apps" to just about any kind of software, especially "business software" -- very little of it was ever too difficult.
Now the following will clearly not be true for all cases, and the boundaries are very fuzzy, but generally a huge part of software development has always been the relatively straightforward translation of high-level requirements into code. Crafting the high-level requirements was typically the challenging part, but that typically was done by the more senior devs / architects, whereas the actual implementation was done by more junior / mid-level engineers. And there were typically multiple junior / mid-level devs for every senior dev, say 3:1 or more. As such, it is correct to say that the simpler aspects of software development were what kept most SWEs employed.
Now AI has completely usurped the lower-level coding work. You as an expert dev are definitely getting worth more than ever with AI, but that's because you single-handedly can now do what an entire team used to do. You may even get paid much more, but that is eventually going to be at the expense of a bunch of other people who are not required anymore.
This is why people are seeing "jobs apocalypse" written on the wall.
I'd say decades, not years.
secondly, using llms well still requires you to be a great programmer. Y'all are losing the plot.
Also, just because its easier to do doesnt mean everyone is suddenly going to want to do it. There's still always going to be only a small percentage of thr world that likes to build things.
Have you seen the code these things produce? Just because it compiles/ runs/ loads does not mean its durable. Its wild you people have these opinions, and it leads me to belive you have no idea what you're talking about.
There is mass dunning kruger due to llms, and people are speaking with way too much authority about things they do not understand. I hate this website.
How can I bet a shit load of money against this?
I remember getting primarily tech lead or other high-senior position listings when doing job searches since at least a couple years