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Ask HN: Should we stop worrying that AI will replace developer jobs?

10 points _pdp_ | 1 comments | 29 Aug 25 14:43 UTC | HN request time: 0.207s | source

Longer title: Should we stop worrying that AI will replace developer jobs and instead start thinking how we are going to hire more developers?

Hi folks,

I can't be the only one noticing that AI coding agents are making us work more, not less.

Here's the math that's been bugging me. If a developer used to write 100 lines of code per day (illustrative) but now AI writes 90% of the code, so you'd think that the load will go down to 10 lines, right? What I find is that the scope has exploded. Developers are now able to crank 1000 lines per day total and while you may say that AI writes 90% of them we are still writing 100 lines of the hard stuff.

Every feature that seemed too expensive before is suddenly doable. Every prototype becomes production system. The bottleneck shifted from typing to thinking, but the thinking load just got 10x bigger. We have also single-handedly increased the demand of that 10% chunk which is not as easy to scale as machines. Am I the only one noticing this?

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mikewarot ◴[29 Aug 25 15:59 UTC] No.45065778[source]▶
There's a divide between Engineering a system, and implementing it in most other fields. We're now facing the situation where LLMs have artificially accellerated the trend we were already on, towards a professionalization of the art of Software Engineering. The title inflation of most of the programing jobs being incorrectly labeled as "software engineer" has obscured this trend.

The demand for actual Engineering skills won't go away anytime soon. The thing about Engineers is accountability and responsibility. If you're responsible for outcomes, you must exercise authority over the process. This gives you bargaining power for wages, which FAANG and others don't want you to have.

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pesfandiar ◴[29 Aug 25 19:52 UTC] No.45068630[source]▶
The delineation between programming and software engineering is arbitrary at best. Everybody understands the "engineering" in software engineering has nothing to do with other certified engineering practices, so the hair splitting here strikes me as mere gatekeeping of titles. Responsibility and accountability for outcomes have always been a requirement regardless of the title.
replies(1): >>45069877 #
1. diatone ◴[29 Aug 25 21:55 UTC] No.45069877[source]▶
Probably worth clarifying with GP what responsibility and accountability they’re referring to.

Where I live, if an engineer signs off on a bridge design and the bridge personally collapses, they are personally liable for harm done to folks on the bridge. As far as I’m aware software engineering does not have something like that.