The next two years of software engineering • Hacker News Board

Re: The next two years of software engineering

#101

Post by gofreddygo » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 10:21 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #55

hncoder12345 wrote: post #53

Sometimes I wonder if I made the wrong choice with software development. Even after getting to a senior role, according to this article, you're still expected to get more education and work on side projects outside of work. Am I supposed to want to code all the time? When can I pursue hobbies, a social life, etc.

It's funny you should ask this. When I started out, 30 years ago, here were the answers you'd get from most people: > Am I supposed to want to code all the time? Yes. > When can I pursue hobbies, Your hobby should be coding fun apps for yourself > a social life, etc. You social life should be hanging out with other engineers talking about engineering things. And the most successful people I know basically did exactly…

Not my experience at all. The very notable engineers I know didn't do their most notable work because of engineering or coding skills. Instead it was finding interesting problems and making a start or thinking a bit differently about something and doing something about it and being approachable and available all along that made a difference.

If all they did was code all the time, write code for fun and interacted mostly with other similar people, they probably wouldn't be the first choice for these projects.

Re: The next two years of software engineering

#102

Post by falloutx » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 10:21 AM UTC

ahmetomer wrote: post #3

> Junior developers: Make yourself AI-proficient and versatile. Demonstrate that one junior plus AI can match a small team’s output. Use AI coding agents (Cursor/Antigravity/Claude Code/Gemini CLI) to build bigger features, but understand and explain every line if not most. Focus on skills AI can’t easily replace: communication, problem decomposition, domain knowledge. Look at adjacent roles (QA, DevRel, data analyti…

And you think juniors aren't doing this? At this point everyone in the market does more Vibe coding than those who are not in the market. Market is saturated most because Execs cutting jobs not because juniors are not good.

Re: The next two years of software engineering

#103

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 10:22 AM UTC

falloutx wrote: post #94

kubb wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don’t get my hopes up. Adaptable people like me will outcompete hard in the post-engineering world. Alas, I don’t believe it’s coming. The tech just doesn’t seem to have what it takes to do the job.

Some related fields will be gone too. And the jobs which will remain will be impossible to get.

[deleted]

Re: The next two years of software engineering

#104

Post by reedf1 » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 10:23 AM UTC

All well-documented knowledge fields will be gone if software goes. Then the undocumented ones will become documented, and they too will go. The best advice to junior devs is get a hands on job before robotic articulating sausages are perfected and humans become irrelevant blobs of watery meat.

Re: The next two years of software engineering

#105

Post by Chris2048 » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 10:23 AM UTC

latexr wrote: post #92

Aurornis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My experience hasn't been LLMs automate coding, just speeds it up. This is how basically everyone I know actually uses LLMs. The whole story about vibecoding and LLMs replacing engineers has become a huge distraction from the really useful discussions to be had. It’s almost impossible to discuss LLMs on HN because everyone is busy attacking the vibecoding strawman all the time.

> It’s almost impossible to discuss LLMs on HN because everyone is busy attacking the vibecoding strawman all the time. What’s “the vibecoding strawman”? There are plenty of people on HN (and elsewhere) repeatedly saying they use LLMs by asking them to “produce full apps in hours instead of weeks” and confirming they don’t read the code. Just because everyone you personally know does it one way, it doesn’t mean every…

I'd assume the straw-man isn't that vibe-coding (vbc) doesn't exist, but that all/most ai-dev is vbc, or that it's ok to derail any discussion on ai-assisted dev with complaints applicable only/mainly to vbc.

Re: The next two years of software engineering

#106

Post by Chris2048 » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 10:24 AM UTC

kylecazar wrote: post #30

Aurornis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My experience hasn't been LLMs automate coding, just speeds it up. This is how basically everyone I know actually uses LLMs. The whole story about vibecoding and LLMs replacing engineers has become a huge distraction from the really useful discussions to be had. It’s almost impossible to discuss LLMs on HN because everyone is busy attacking the vibecoding strawman all the time.

Half strawman -- a mudman, perhaps. Because we're seeing proper experts with credentials jump on the 'shit, AI can do all of this for me' realization blog post train.

Which experts?

Re: The next two years of software engineering

#107

Post by MyFirstSass » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 10:24 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #55

hncoder12345 wrote: post #53

Sometimes I wonder if I made the wrong choice with software development. Even after getting to a senior role, according to this article, you're still expected to get more education and work on side projects outside of work. Am I supposed to want to code all the time? When can I pursue hobbies, a social life, etc.

It's funny you should ask this. When I started out, 30 years ago, here were the answers you'd get from most people: > Am I supposed to want to code all the time? Yes. > When can I pursue hobbies, Your hobby should be coding fun apps for yourself > a social life, etc. You social life should be hanging out with other engineers talking about engineering things. And the most successful people I know basically did exactly…

That's not true at all.

The ones who ace their careers are for the most people that are fun, driven, or psychos, all social traits that make you good in a political game.

Spending lots of time with other socially awkward types talking about hard math problems or whatever will get you nowhere outside of some SF fantasy startup movie.

I'd say it's especially important for the more nerdy (myself included) to be more outgoing, and do other stuff like sales or presentations, design/marketing og workshops - that will make you exceptional because you then got the "whole package" and undestand the process and other people.

Re: The next two years of software engineering

#108

Post by qsera » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 10:26 AM UTC

hncoder12345 wrote: post #53

Sometimes I wonder if I made the wrong choice with software development. Even after getting to a senior role, according to this article, you're still expected to get more education and work on side projects outside of work. Am I supposed to want to code all the time? When can I pursue hobbies, a social life, etc.

>I made the wrong choice with software development.

If you didn't like working with computers, then you (and another gazillion people who choose it for the $$$) probably made the wrong choice.

But totally depends on what you wanted to get out of it. If you wanted to make $$$ and you are making it, what is the problem? That is assuming you have fun outside of work.

But if you wanted to be the best at what you do, then you gotta love what you are doing. May be there are people who have super human discipline. But for normal people, loving what they goes a long way towards that end.

Re: The next two years of software engineering

#109

Post by falloutx » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 10:27 AM UTC

globular-toast wrote: post #78

This article suggests it is specialists who are "at risk", but as much more of a generalist I was thinking the opposite and starting to regret not specialising more. My value so far in my career has been my very broad knowledge of basically the entire of computer science, IT, engineering, science, mathematics, and even beyond. Basically, I read a lot, at least 10x more than most people it seems. I was starting to won…

I mean there is no strat that saves you 100% from it. The layoffs are kind of random, based on teams they dont see any vision for, or engineers who dont perform. Generalising is better imo.

Re: The next two years of software engineering

#110

Post by gofreddygo » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 10:30 AM UTC

burnermore wrote: post #67

Something very odd about the tone of this article. Is it mostly AI written? There is a lot of references and info. But I am feeling far more disconnected with it. For the record, I was genuinely trying to read it properly. But it is becoming unbearable by mid article.

100% has that AI slop smell.

intro... Problem... (The Bottom line... What to do about it...) Looped over and over. and then Finally...

I want to read it, but I can't get myself to.