S omething inside me is dying. I'm 30 years old and I thought I had my career figured out. I've found profound joy in software engineering. Spending a whole day programming is how I imagine a dog feels getting its favorite spot scratched. When I find a bug I've been chasing all afternoon my leg starts shaking. The cherry on top? The skill has been valuable enough to pay well and provide good benefits. I've been winning the lottery every day with this gig.
Suddenly, the AI was there, and it was crappy, until it wasn't. Now, I hand tickets to a chatbot and watch it upchuck production-ready features faster than I can review a PR. Suddenly, I'm not so sure what I'll be doing in five years. Or two years. And you know what sucks about this technological miracle? It's not as fun. It's not as satisfying. My leg shakes no more.
There's a lot I'll miss about classic software engineering. The joy of finding the perfect function in the documentation I should have read before I started. The anticipation of uncovering the bugfix I just know is staring me in the face. The fulfillment of shipping a feature I built from the ground up. The laughter, watching the first customer break it. Loving them anyway for finding a new perspective. If you're in it for the problem solving, then your life just dulled. AI-assisted coding is undeniably less engaging. No longer are you locking in for hours to solve a big problem. As it stands, you're doomscrolling while waiting for the AI to think through the problem.
Like many programmers, I'm well into grieving the death of classic software engineering. Personally, this essay is my acceptance. I remember the denial well (it wasn't long ago): "This will never be good enough to replace me". The anger- "But climate change"- and the bargaining: "I'll only use this for the small and boring tickets that I don't like doing". My depression is waning, and that's only because I've accepted that I'll be recalibrating my career. And what could be more exciting than that? The thrill of the unknown after 10 solid years. Honestly though, I'm a smart guy, and everywhere I've worked, I've been surrounded by smart engineers. I'm sure we'll all figure something out. However, what a daunting hurdle: finding something to fill the huge, perfect gap left by classic software engineering.
You're doom-scrolling while waiting for the AI to think through the problem
Maybe, if I'm lucky, this "new software engineering", being the admiral of a vast fleet of agents, swashbuckling with my hearty crew through the South Jira Sea, will take its place as the natural successor of classic software engineering. Maybe, if I'm lucky, instead of hacking together an 8-bit version of Flappy Bird over a long weekend, I'll find the same satisfaction hacking together a 32-bit version of NBA 2k '26 next President's Day. Maybe all we'll need is to ratchet up our thresholds of admiration for each others' work. Will this happen, though? I think a more realistic outcome is that an AI will just as easily plan that out and execute it from a prompt "Make me a 32-bit version of NBA 2k '26".
So, can we still have fun being the sidekick to an AI that does most of the labor? Ian Banks, sci-fi author, offers a take in his novel Use of Weapons. It's set in a post-scarcity universe run by sentient AI. Here's a snippet from a scene in which a woman is helping an AI build a spaceship:
"Can't machines build these faster?" he asked the woman, looking around the starship shell. "Why, of course!" she laughed. "Then why do you do it?" "It's fun. You see one of these big mothers sail out those doors for the first time, heading for deep space, three hundred people on board, everything working, and you think, I helped build that. The fact a machine could have done it faster doesn't alter the fact that it was you who actually did it. ...Have you ever been gliding or swum underwater?" "Yes," he agreed. The woman shrugged. "Yet birds fly better than we do, and fish swim better. Do we stop gliding or swimming because of this?" He smiled. "I suppose not." "You suppose correctly," the woman said. "And why?" She looked at him, grinning. "Because it's fun."
In Banks' utopian vision, humans aren't required for anything, but they participate anyway because "it's fun". They know the work would be completed faster and more preciesly without them, but they find statisfaction in being part of the process. I've been trying to unearth a parallel feeling while using AI in my own day-to-day work. It's hard. I'm not having a ton of fun with the AI stuff right now. But, there's something there that is mirrored in Banks' scene. I've found that fun still exists, but now, the bulk of it comes from actually shipping the feature, not from the build process. So, where I used to have fun all day problem-solving, now I mostly get the satisfaction watching my work go off into the real world, like Banks' ship sailing out of port. Oh god. I'm a product manager now.
Software can't exactly go the way of ceramics
So, that's just some thinking for those who make software their day job. What about the casual weekend hacker? What about the side projects the career engineers go home to at night? The hobbyists. To this, I say that software can't exactly go the way of ceramics. A handcrafted vase takes more labor to produce than a mass-produced vase. It has more character. It is more expensive. The point here is that the quality of the vase increases with care. Software does not share this trait. Take any handcrafted app or game, and you'll be able to recreate it pixel-for-pixel with AI. No matter the level of care you put into a handcrafting code for your app, it will not fundamentally perform better or be of higher quality than one built with AI assistance. In fact, it will probably be worse. For this reason, I don't anticipate small local studios leading weekly classes on how to make a handcrafted to-do app.
But (twist) the code isn't the cool part of your side project. It's the wacky app idea. It's the heavily stylized game. It's some creative aspect that came from your head. If you're in it for the creativity, the ability to make your game or app real, then your life just got better. No longer is the code a barrier. You can spend more time on the creative aspects of your project, like the art, the music, or the level design. The code is a given, your creativity is not.
The code is a given, your creativity is not
So I say, rejoice, hackers. We're not dead yet. We're entering a brand new era of software engineering in which our ideas are more valuable than they've ever been. Maybe now we'll actually finish a side project. ■