LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do • Hacker News Board

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#821

Post by gitaarik » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 5:49 AM UTC

an0malous wrote: post #38

There’s one force where software engineering is being automated by LLMs, but the other force is that there isn’t really much more software that needs to be built. Even before AI coding became big, back in 2021, we were already in late stage SaaS territory where each new idea was an increasingly minor variation of an existing idea. There were no new GitHubs, Herokus, Stripes, Salesforces, Instagrams, Reddits, just var…

I don't know, I can think of lots of new ideas that haven't been executed yet. I think there's always more to explore. It's also a bit of creativity and out-of-the-box thinking

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#822

Post by insane_dreamer » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 5:51 AM UTC

mrandish wrote: post #679

george_max wrote: post #617

I see many comments saying, "AI can't do X with 80-100% accuracy; therefore our professions are in good hands." While I don't want to sound overly pessimistic, the models are improving at a rapid rate. If asked ~3 years ago where the state of the models are today, it would sound like sci-fi if answered, "the models are creating full MVP apps in ~30 minutes with one prompt". The hurdles the models are facing now, like…

> the models are improving at a rapid rate. If asked ~3 years ago where the state of the models are today, it would sound like sci-fi Absolutely true, many things will continue to improve in significant ways. However, if we look at the modern history of rapid disruptions driven by technology (a side interest of mine), persistent patterns emerge. Similar to avalanches or flash floods, such periods of very rapid disrup…

> The rate of fundamental, broad-based breakthroughs lifting all LLM applications has clearly slowed with many of the most impactful recent discoveries being in scaling, optimization, tuning and productization toward specific domains.

What this means is that the disruption across industries not even truly begun, because it's not the generic chatbot models that are going to kill labor, it's all the domain-specific applications that leverage those models to perform work that was performed by humans

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#823

Post by insane_dreamer » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 5:54 AM UTC

rsalus wrote: post #626

george_max wrote: post #617

I see many comments saying, "AI can't do X with 80-100% accuracy; therefore our professions are in good hands." While I don't want to sound overly pessimistic, the models are improving at a rapid rate. If asked ~3 years ago where the state of the models are today, it would sound like sci-fi if answered, "the models are creating full MVP apps in ~30 minutes with one prompt". The hurdles the models are facing now, like…

I don't know, even if AI allows two engineers to do the work of six, companies will likely just use that efficiency to expand their scope. I think we'll see short-term layoffs and a more stratified engineering field during the transition, but the fundamental need for deep technical expertise isn't going away.

> even if AI allows two engineers to do the work of six, companies will likely just use that efficiency to expand their scope.

1) they won't, they'll just cut costs

or

2) they will, but unless it's a new scope or one that can absorb growth, they'll just be competing with other companies in the space and taking away business from them

either way, labor loses

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#824

Post by istvan0 » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 5:58 AM UTC

> Sure, humans should steer the agent to prevent spaghetti codebases with circular dependency graphs. We don't want F-rated codebases that are impossible to touch without breaking something. But a C or D? It's now fine. Nobody needs A or B-grade codebases anymore because they're being made for LLMs, not for humans to read.

Your job is now to get the LLMs to write good code the same way you would do it if instead of AI agents, you would be leading a team of humans.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#825

Post by human305893 » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 6:03 AM UTC

ai_fry_ur_brain wrote: post #743

davnicwil wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This won't happen in most cases because the valuable thing is largely the knowledge encoded in the software, which the buyers of the software don't have and don't want to have since they're focused on their own business. There's also, of course, the not insignificant value in the software itself actually working, being operated, being updated when necessary, all of that. Again just extra hassle no business will want…

Why would I build my own CRM instead of paying 50k a year or whatever? The engineer plus tokens for maintenance will cost you way more than 50k. These people are delusional and just repeating delusional vibe coder tweets.

Hell, there is a lot of really good open source software that fits most peoples needs already, that can be self hosted and costs nothing but the running of it. But people still pay for the SaaS product. Because you're not just paying for software. you're paying for support, uptime, compliance etc. These people think that SaaS is dead confuse me.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#826

Post by jacobjjacob » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 6:06 AM UTC

I don’t think that my career has been eroded by even 1%. The areas of erosion listed by the author feel like reverse order to me. The domain is knowing what questions to ask. That’s the last thing to be replaced.

I think that if you are a skilled software engineer and can adapt, you will be amplified in all aspects. If you just like writing artisanal code, you might have a bad time.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#827

Post by kuschku » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 6:07 AM UTC

lubujackson wrote: post #474

ericmcer wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dynamic of agent codes human reviews does seem like the only sane one for the foreseeable future. Even Anthropic themselves still fall back to this. The problem is that sucks, even if all software engineers keep their jobs and salaries, the floor is still pulled out from under us. Imagine if a surgeons job was to supervise robot surgeons from a remote computer, or a woodworker just signs off on work before the ma…

I think there is a big difference between a surgeon, who is performing a specific task with a clear outcome, to a woodworker, who might produce a unique piece of art or a functional chair. I think the surgeon-type tasks will be replaced eventually. More interesting are the woodworker types, which has some similarities to SWEs. When industrialization hit, we definitely lost a ton of craftsmanship and craftsman, but a…

And yet, I ended up throwing the IKEA coffee table out, and instead making one myself.

I had no prior experience with woodworking, and while it's a little bit wobbly, it's much more robust and it's the exact shape and size I need. It cost the same and it'll last much longer.

And there's emotions and a story attached.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#828

Post by zuzululu » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 6:14 AM UTC

rfgplk wrote: post #703

ofjcihen wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is akin to “don’t make mistakes” “Verify all facts and compliance requirements” leaves enormous holes even if you assume the LLM has a concept of facts and requirements (it does not). What facts? What requirements? For what industry? For what subset of that industry? For what country or countries that you will be doing business in? Are these current “facts” and “requirements” or is the LLM referencing a dusty ar…

> “Verify all facts and compliance requirements” No. This is a disasterous instruction. Not only is it vague, but it's also meaningless. When giving instructions to an LLM your prompt must be concise and exact. Tell it _exactly_ which requirements need to be followed, ideally have it write or (preferably) pass audited tests to enforce these requirements. You also need to provide it with a hard source of truth it can…

Especially in cybersecurity.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#829

Post by zuzululu » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 6:20 AM UTC

ofjcihen wrote: post #508

ilaksh wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 years max. Maybe 5 if you are lucky.The models will continue to improve. The exponential gains in compute efficiency that have been ongoing for 70+ years will continue and that will result in even smarter models. There are dramatic hardware changes in the pipeline. But really that particular issue could have been solved by literally just telling it in a markdown file or instructions something like "verify all facts…

This is akin to “don’t make mistakes” “Verify all facts and compliance requirements” leaves enormous holes even if you assume the LLM has a concept of facts and requirements (it does not). What facts? What requirements? For what industry? For what subset of that industry? For what country or countries that you will be doing business in? Are these current “facts” and “requirements” or is the LLM referencing a dusty ar…

If someone can’t distinguish between the two then I honestly wonder what company would be comfortable putting them anywhere near a regulated or security-sensitive workflow especially from someone one that condescendingly views their own jobs as a daycare for people seemingly beneath them.

Re: LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do

#830

Post by azan_ » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 6:25 AM UTC

ai_fry_ur_brain wrote: post #739

george_max wrote: post #617

I see many comments saying, "AI can't do X with 80-100% accuracy; therefore our professions are in good hands." While I don't want to sound overly pessimistic, the models are improving at a rapid rate. If asked ~3 years ago where the state of the models are today, it would sound like sci-fi if answered, "the models are creating full MVP apps in ~30 minutes with one prompt". The hurdles the models are facing now, like…

[flagged]

Something tells me that you have some kind of anti-AI agenda and that you are not really looking at things objectively. Maybe it’s your nick “ai_fry_your_brain”, maybe it’s “ If you disagree with me, you're a slopper.”, who knows!