Securing your software development role in the age of AI
3 minutes
Will AI take away engineering jobs? **No**. Will it take away coder jobs? **Sure**. I can see how managers come to the conclusion that they can reduce half their staff. I don't share that opinion, mind you, at least not in this general manner. Can you make sure you'll have a job in 2 years? I think **yes**, and here's how.
Recent Job-Interviews. The occasional after-work beer. Even during my recent purchase of a monitor via Kleinanzeigen (classifieds) people ask for my take on coding with agents. Time to put my thoughts here.
I’ve been an AI skeptic. I’m still, but now less so. Why? I’ve experienced working with a coding agent (Claude) and it brought fun back into coding. Personal projects feel more approachable. The jump from “I should do X at one point” to “Let me try this now” has been greatly reduced.
In my experience, companies always wanted to produce and build more than they had engineering staff. I don’t see that going away through AI. Instead, building things and writing tooling for departments comes a lot cheaper. Iterative prototyping, figuring out what to build, and measuring its impact has become orders of magnitude easier.
Still, given the appetite for building, the industry course-corrects and the news about lay offs don’t subside. Whether it is because of AI or the current political instabilities doesn’t really matter, does it? So how can you secure your job? By being and staying relevant!
I’ve worked a while in the publishing sector for, among others, medical journals, and I learned that doctors in their fields do something called CME - continued medical education. It’s a requirement for their jobs. And not just in the US. CME is also regulated in Germany. Probably anywhere in the world.
Unlike in Software Engineering, practicing medicine is highly regulated. And continuing to learn and grow has always been a part of a career in the field of medicine. Doctors spend weekends on symposiums or conferences, learn about new approaches in their field, demo and teach aspiring doctors until they eventually retire. They continuously improve, hone existing and build new skills.
At RISE Conf 2018, Gary Vee said something that stuck with me. He said that “emotional intelligence is to become the single most important trait” and that skills will “continue on a daily basis to be commoditized”. That was 2018. Now, eight years later, you can see how spot-on that was.
AI can’t network with peers. And it takes “taste” and “opinion” to steer agents. I’ve long been preaching to peers that reading StackOverflow will prepare them only for the task at hand, and it is reading that will prepare them for the unknown unknowns. It’s easy to see that StackOverflow is fighting to stay relevant now that Agents are available. You’re assumed to be ready for the task at hand. Time to build taste and opinion, and to prepare for the unknowns. How?
- For the love of all that is holy, start reading! And I mean books and papers.
- Invest in networking (outside of LinkedIn), connect with peers on meetups and conferences.
- Start investing in your skills outside of work. It is a lot to ask, depending on your personal situation. But you can find a way.
- Don’t be dogmatic. Figure out what “good enough” means. You’ve learned about YAGNI and DRY - it’s time to figure out when it is okay to ignore them.
- Figure out why your principal engineers keep bringing up atomic commits and your testing strategy and stop ignoring them.
So my take on coding in the age of AI? My thoughts on engineering?
You will only become obsolete if you don’t invest in your growth. So strive to be better. Every day. Just a little. Strive for meaningful impact, in your company or in your colleagues’ lives. Start writing, maybe. And figure out how to be a better engineer. My recommendation: reading. Start with Modern Software Engineering.