[maxdoop]

How much longer can I get paid $150k to write code ?

[prmph]

I’ll believe the models can take the jobs of programmers when they can generate a sophisticated iOS app based on some simple prompts, ready for building and publication in the app store. That is nowhere near the horizon no matter how much things are hyped up, and it may well never arrive.

[vouaobrasil]

Nah, it will arrive. And regardless, this sort of AI reduces the skill level required to make the app. It reduces the amount of people required and thus reduces the demand for engineers. So, even though AI is not CLOSE to what you are suggesting, it can significantly reduce the salaries of those that ARE required. So maybe fewer $150K programmers will be hired with the same revenue for even higher profits.

The most bizarre thing is that programmers are literally writing code to replace themselves because once this AI started, it was a race to the bottom and nobody wants to be last.

[timenotwasted]

The absolutist type comments are such a wild take given how often they are so wrong.

[sss111]

3 to 5 years, max. Traditional coding is going to be dead in the water. Optimistically, the junior SWE job will evolve but more realistically dedicated AI-based programming agents will end demand for Junior SWEs

[lagrange77]

Which implies that a few years later they will not become senior SWEs either.

[deadbabe]

There’s a very good chance that if a company can replace its programmers with pure AI then it means whatever they’re doing is probably already being offered as a SaaS product so why not just skip the AI and buy that? Much cheaper and you don’t have to worry about dealing with bugs.

[croemer]

SaaS works for general problems faced by many businesses.

[arrosenberg]

Unless the LLMs see multiple leaps in capability, probably indefinitely. The Malthusians in this thread seem to think that LLMs are going to fix the human problems involved in executing these businesses - they won't. They make good programmers more productive and will cost some jobs at the margins, but it will be the low-level programming work that was previously outsourced to Asia and South America for cost-arbitrage.

[HarHarVeryFunny]

You're not being paid $150K to "write code". You're being paid that to deliver solutions - to be a corporate cog than can ingest business requirements and emit (and maintain) business solutions.

If there are jobs paying $150K just to code (someone else tells you what to code, and you just code it up), then please share!

[colesantiago]

Frontier expert specialist programmers will always be in demand.

Generalist junior and senior engineers will need to think of a different career path in less than 5 years as more layoffs will reduce the software engineering workforce.

It looks like it may be the way things are if progress in the o1, o3, oN models and other LLMs continues on.

[deadbabe]

This assumes that software products in the future will remain at the same complexity as they are today, just with AI building them out.

But they won’t. AI will enable building even more complex software which counter intuitively will result in need even more human jobs to deal with this added complexity.

Think about how despite an increasing amount of free open source libraries over time enabling some powerful stuff easily, developer jobs have only increased, not decreased.

[mitjam]

The question is: How to become a senior when there is no place to be a junior? Will future SWE need to do the 10k hours as a hobby? Will AI speed up or slow down learning?

[tsunamifury]

Often what happens is the golf-course phenomenon. As golfing gets less popular, low and mid tier golf courses go out of business as they simply aren't needed. But at the same time demand for high end golf courses actually skyrockets because people who want to golf either can give it up or go higher end.

This I think will happen with programmers. Rote programming will slowly die out, while demand for super high end will go dramatically up in price.

[CapcomGo]

Where does this golf-course phenomenon come from? It doesn't really match the real world or how golfing works.

[mrdependable]

I think they will have to figure out how to get around context limits before that happens. I also wouldn't be surprised if the future models that can actually replace workers are sold at such an exorbitant price that only larger companies will be able to afford it. Everyone else gets access to less capable models that still require someone with knowledge to get to an end result.

[torginus]

Well, considering they floated the $2000 subscription idea, and they still haven't revealed everything, they could still introduce the $2k sub with o3+agents/tool use, which means, till about next week.

[kirykl]

If it’s any consolation, Agile priests and middle managers will be the first to go

[dhfuuvyvtt]

See ya Cindy.