We have an instance where the non-tech team has started building tooling for themselves (because the technical team is overburdened with work).
Essentially a small application idea that interfaces with the larger system. It was POC built in 2-3 days, 3 or 4 commits.
Impressive - however the person that built it has now made 400 more commits over the last 3 months to this project as it has been modified, it’s essentially become his part / full time job to just build + maintain this new application.
They have become a software developer. An untrained one, one that doesn’t understand security or best practices. Maybe as Claude gets better the load will be lightened and it will not consume their day, but as it stands - at my company, all of these initial “vibe apps” are becoming maintenance for them, taking up more and more of their time. It’s obvious that they want MORE software, not less. So traditional software engineering is probably gone, but managing expanding platforms and handling security, complexities, documentation, business logic, all of that is still standing in the way for my company.
So you are correct saying that people can build projects with text, but I feel that “set and forget” has never been the case for all but the simplest software. Someone still has to manage all of it, I think. Whether trained in SE or not.
My guess is that developers who have experience can still outperform untrained people, though the builders who are curious by nature will quickly get up to speed. The game is changing but traditional developers have a huge upper hand, because we’ve always wanted to know how things work under the hood. I could have built the current vibe app that they built in a hour using AI, it’s taken them months.