The demise of software engineering jobs has been greatly exaggerated
By Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN
New York (CNN) — Computer science and engineering students at the University of Washington, spooked about AI, returned from spring break last week to a surprising email from the department head.
“I’m reaching out because I keep hearing concerns about AI and the future of (computer science) careers,” Magdalena Balazinska, director of Washington’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, wrote to more than 2,000 undergraduates.
Her message: AI is not killing your job options. It’s expanding them.
AI is making it possible to produce more with fewer workers. Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI’s Codex and other AI tools can pump out code faster than ever, stoking fears that AI will one day replace software developer jobs entirely. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said the company stopped hiring engineers last year, and roughly half the US public believes AI will lead to fewer software jobs in the future. Rapid advancements in software development may be a signal of what AI will soon do to other fields.
But job openings for developers are growing. Companies believe they will pump out more software now that nearly anyone can be a coder with AI, increasing demand for seasoned engineers to shape these products.
Instead of wiping out jobs, AI is shifting the tasks of developers. They are doing less routine coding work and devoting more of their schedule to overseeing swarms of AI-powered code-writing agents — autonomous bots that can complete tasks. Engineers, in turn, are spending more time designing the structure of software and generating ideas.
“The job will look different. That doesn’t mean it’s going away,” said Amanda Richardson, the CEO of CoderPad, a hiring platform companies use to interview software engineers. “The best engineers are spending all day, every day with AI and using it to make their designs better.”
This has created a chaotic transition period, potentially hurting engineers who are reluctant to use AI or struggle to keep up with the technology.
Hiring engineers
Listings for software engineer jobs on Indeed are up 11% annually, a faster clip than postings overall, according to analysis by Citadel Securities. Companies are expanding their software budgets and increasing engineer headcounts, a Bank of America survey found. The long-term outlook for the job appears strong, too. Software developer employment will grow 15% by 2034, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects.
Most computer science majors at the University of Washington are still taking full-time engineering positions in the tech industry after they graduate, Balazinska told students in her email.
Industries experiencing rapid technological change have historically shown employment growth, and software development may be the latest example, said James Bessen, executive director of the Technology & Policy Research Initiative at Boston University.
New technologies don’t just replace labor with machines — they also reduce prices and improve product quality. This increases customer demand and drives up employment.
Automation drove down the cost of producing textiles in the 19th century, leading to a 100-fold increase in cotton cloth consumption, he said. Employment in the textile industry soared until roughly the 1960s.
The companies that come out on top will connect junior AI “power users” with senior employees that understand the industry, said Frank Nagle, a research scientist at MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy.
IBM, for example, is tripling entry-level hiring in the United States, including software developers.
Junior engineers are now capable with AI of taking on tasks that once required experienced developers, Neel Sundaresan, IBM’s general manager of automation and AI, said in an email.
The job at IBM has shifted from routine coding tasks to working directly with customers and specifying features that can be created with AI. “Because the role is changing, we need people who can grow into it,” he said.
Intuit, the fintech company behind TurboTax and Credit Karma, is also hiring more early career developers who have grown up using AI and may understand it better than mid-career workers, Alex Balazs, Intuit’s chief technology officer, said in an interview.
Five or 10 years ago, a developer wrote every line of code without automation. But Intuit’s engineers now focus on the more complex aspects of code and software design, Balazs said. They also spend more time solving customer problems, such as auto-categorizing transactions from a bank or automatic payment reminders.
“They actually have the time to worry about those things because they don’t have to spend endless hours coding boilerplate, common things,” he said.
‘Roll-up your sleeves’
It’s still an anxious time for developers.
As companies ramp up spending on AI, they’re also looking to cut costs. Computer science graduates said they struggled to find work last year, and tech giants like Oracle, Amazon and Microsoft have laid off tens of thousands of workers in recent months.
Rank and file workers are scrambling to adjust to the AI era. At the pace AI is evolving, they’ll likely have to continue to learn new skills and find ways to use the technology to stand out.
Customers and colleagues often press Balazs on the future of the job and whether software development is a career worth pursuing. His answer: companies covet developers who know how to marshal AI.
Magdalena Balazinska had a similar message to computer science students at the University of Washington.
“Roll-up your sleeves,” embrace the change and keep learning, she said. There will be many more technological breakthroughs from now until you retire.
That’s what makes the field “so fun to be in.”
The-CNN-Wire
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