I think there will be a convergence where AI enables more POs to create software directly, and more SEs move up the value chain to work on product-level problem solving.
Perhaps you have confused software engineer with coder? LLMs are most definitely the final death knell for anyone still working as a coder, but that profession was on the way out for decades already. The earlier comment was clear about software engineer.
If you want to go into detail with that kind of stuff, your best bet is not the PO, but the lead engineer of the team. If the team was properly staffed, the lead engineer will have a solid knowledge of the business aspects of the product while at the same time being able to cross-reference that with the most important technical aspects.
LLMs will make more people into "lead engineers", even if all they're "leading" is the LLM agents and not other humans, as it was common before the LLM age. One of those will then emerge as the "lead lead engineer" who's going to lead the humans which in turn lead the LLMs. If it wasn't for the "engineer" in the meaning of "code monkey" dying out - which I also expect - we'd have to invent a new title, but I'm currently expecting this shift to go without that. It'll still leave some engineers who made themselves comfortable just churning out code that does whatever a ticket requests, without even understanding one iota of the business process behind the ticket, without a job, but that's the kind of "software engineer" who in my opinion shouldn't ever have taken up the profession anyway.
> They simply pass messages back and forth.
So you claim. We're about to conduct a real-life experiment to see which is more valuable: passing messages back and forth to the computer, or passing messages back and forth to the customer.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_CrowdStrike-related_IT_ou...
You don't think anyone designs software? It just magically appears?
> So-called software "engineers" do not practice engineering in the way that a mechanical engineer or a civil engineer does.
And? The dictionary defines engineer as someone who designs and builds things. It does not prescribe how the thing is designed.
> How often do bridges collapse?
Not often, but often enough to know that we still consider the designer to have been an engineer and not a project manager. I still have no idea where the idea that project managers do the design work came from.
> passing messages back and forth to the computer, or passing messages back and forth to the customer.
When AI can handle the judgment, anticipation, and deal with ambiguity neither are important. The customer will go straight to he AI. Hence why "white collar" jobs of all sorts are ultimately doomed. Unless you believe AI cannot reach that level, in which case software engineers will be fine, since that's the whole reason for their existence.
What we do see happening already is the decline of the project owner/manager role. More expensive money and technology increasing engineering efficiency has made it such that it is becoming hard to justify an assistant to bridge the telephone tag gap. That doesn't really affect engineers much, though. Before ZIRP allowed budgets for project managers/owners engineers also played that same role, so it is nothing unusual for them. Engineering getting secretarial assistants for a time, something historically reserved only for the upper brass, is but a curious aberration.
Do you actually write software for money?
Most commercial software is never designed, it evolves, over the course of repeated "agile" "sprints". Every two weeks, someone hacks together something that kinda-sorta works and then that is released.
Eventually (often many years later) the thing becomes so complex and unwieldy that it's impossible to add any more features, so someone gets angry, throws it away, and starts again growing a new monster.
No. I am paid to be involved in the software industry, but as an engineer, not as a coder. Writing software is not part of what I do. That is, to use your bridge analogy, for the construction crew.
> over the course of repeated "agile" "sprints".
It is true that not all engineers know what they are doing, are good at what they do, or bold enough to push back against out-to-lunch stakeholders.
> so someone gets angry, throws it away, and starts again growing a new monster.
I never understood that. Untangling the messes was always the fun part back when coding was still a job. But I don't really see any coders in industry anymore. Any last remaining ones I knew of have already been replaced by LLMs. LLMs will also happily untangle the messes, though, so still no reason to abandon code.
I'm very very curious where all these mythical software engineers are working. Finance, maybe? ... or not https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-03-03/citi-k...
>> One quirk of the program was that the amount field came pre-populated with 15 zeros, which the person inputting a transaction needed to delete, something that did not happen.
> One quirk? Fifteen zeros? The quirk in the software is that if you type “send $1” it says “okay sending one quadrillion dollars” and you have to backspace over all the zeros? Incredible interface design.
Boeing, Microsoft, and medical device manufacturers mentioned seem like pretty good candidates. Were you under the impression that the software designed at those places just magically appears?
As before, being an engineer does not imply being good at the job. It only implies designing things. The designation of Professional Engineer institutes a vetting process to try and weed out those who aren't good at the job, which may be the source of your confusion, but PE is a designation, not a job. Not all PEs even work as engineers, although certainly many do.
Has any software "engineer" ever lost his license because he signed off on trash code that failed? Where is the Otis elevator emergency brake[0] of the software world?
[0] https://www.eng.auburn.edu/~kchang/comp6710/readings/They%20...
[1] https://www.otis.com/en/us/tools-resources/high-rise-safety-...
Because the people involved weren't good at their job...? We've been over this multiple times now. It doesn't seem like it should be hard to figure out. What do you continue to miss?
> but they are not engineers
Sure, software involves lots of different types of work. Engineers are just one tiny piece of the puzzle. But design is exclusively the domain of engineers. Anyone working on the design is an engineer, by definition. That, again, does not imply that they know what they are doing, are good at their job, or bold enough to push back against out-to-lunch stakeholders. Having someone doing engineering work does not magically mean you are going to see an excellent product on the other side. Most people are pretty lousy at what they do.
You, again, increase your chances if you involve PEs, but that's not a job, just a designation.
You and I have very different definitions of "engineer". To me, an engineer is a licensed professional who adheres to the code of practice for his or her profession. We'll have to agree to disagree on the semantics. I think lots of software people want to call themselves "engineers" because it sounds like someone who should be paid more money.
...or it did, until the AI revolution.
Again, we’re talking about jobs (and whether they will remain in the future), not professional designations. Licensed professional engineers are usually referred to as PEs, but even if you want to call them engineers it is clear that not all engineers of that sort work in engineering. In context, we can establish that we are talking about engineers in the worker sense, not the professional license sense.
Is English a second language for you? Maybe context doesn’t translate well. English is certainly bad for assigning multiple meanings to words and relying on context to figure out which meaning applies.
> I think lots of software people want to call themselves "engineers" because it sounds like someone who should be paid more money.
How would describing the job by what it is, literally by dictionary definition, garner more money?
I am aware of the time physicians started calling themselves doctors to try and ride on the coattails of academics, so I think I understand the angle you are trying to come up with, but this isn’t like that. In this case engineer was already the word in the dictionary that existed to describe the work.
Even outside of "software engineering" there are tons of people working jobs that almost everyone would consider "engineering" that don't require a stamp. Chemical engineers, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, tons. Only ~5% of chemical engineers have passed the PE, I guess there are essentially no real chemical engineers then?
Even in a civil engineering firm, most likely the kind of engineering you're talking about, only about half will actually be licensed and have a stamp. Tons of people will work on a project and figure out a lot of details, then work with the person with the stamp to sign off on the implementation details. Their work is undoubtedly still "engineering", but they don't have a stamp.
This was the norm in every job I had from late 90s to around 2015.
Engineering Managers were responsible for both technical and business outcomes, and it worked fine.
The scrum solution of having from the business side acting as a literal "product owner" or "client representative" and giving feedback IMO was a much better direction that unfortunately companies have not followed.