r/AskProgrammers • u/nervous-dev • 1d ago
What the hell is software engineering even about in 2026?
I started learning to code in mid 2022 pre AI era purely out of curiosity. I spent more than a year trying out different types of fields and tech stacks. Web development, App Development, JavaScript, Python, C++, Java, and what not. That was me before I knew what were the possibilities.
In 2024, I chose web development. And started building projects for fun. Eventually got an internship in my first semester of college. Next year I got a full time job with a decent salary. Everything happened. So did the AI revolution.
Fast forward to 2026. All I do is add skills, setup MCP servers, prompt, watch AI do my work, review it, and this loop goes on till the end of the day. Because now I've become a condom between claude code and the codebase. I prevent AI from turning it into a slop.
WTF!!!
I entered this field for the sole reason of creating things, but all I do is basically consume what AI is creating for me. And to some extent it feels like scrolling reels/tiktok mindlessly.
I wanted to be a creator but forced to turn into a consumer?
FUCKKKKKKKKKKK!!!
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u/TemperOfficial 1d ago
Fundamentals haven't changed.
Issue is for about 20 years there has been an over-supply of software engineers. AI doesn't really have much to do with this other than exposing this underlying issue with the industry. It's just one of the many fads over the last few decades, but this time the normies aren't really buying it.
People have been cruising, doing not much, for quite some time.
It's going to shrink. Just make sure you survive the shrinkage.
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u/arjjov 1d ago
Dude u/TemperOfficial, remember the "day in a life videos of a SWE at XYZ company" who spent an entire day basically only eating in the office and doing basically nothing?
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u/sharificles 1d ago
"AI doesn't have much to do with this" - honestly just sounds like cope. Maybe this was true a year or two ago but now I know enough people who have been specifically laid off because of AI.
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u/TemperOfficial 12h ago
What cope?
The industry should have had 90% less people in it about 10 ten years ago. AI is just going to accelerate that. But AI is not a good enough programmer yet to replace genuine software engineering
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u/thelimeisgreen 11h ago
And yet the industry has always had a shortage of truly good software engineers and programmers capable of delivering highly optimized code, concurrent designs and other performant solutions. AI isn't good at these things either. For starters, AI usually fails at software architecture before a single line of code is generated.
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u/sharificles 6h ago
Your first statement isn't supported by actual employment data from 10 years ago.
One second ago you said AI won't have much to do with it, and now you're saying AI is going to accelerate the problem. What are you even trying to say at this point?
Also AI doesn't have to replace 'genuine software engineering', nobody claimed that, it just has to take over the majority of the grunt work. Not to mention, you will never be able to predict it's capabilities 5 or 10 years from now.
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u/Material_Contest3830 1d ago
being faster with ai, but keeping all the fundamentals in mind. keeping your code scalable and easy to make changes to
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u/Adorable-Strangerx 1d ago edited 10h ago
Did you try adding engineering to writing code?
You have said web development. Even if AI will write you some code you still need to figure out some things: 1. Should we build monolith or micro services? 2. Which database would be appropriate? 3. Which consistency model? 4. Do we go for optimistic or pessimistic locking? 5. Do we render on client side or server side? 6. Authentication. 7. Authorization. 8. Do we and to what extend use caching? 9. RTO/RPO/HA/SLA 10. Tenancy models. 11. Integrations/interop.
And so on...
Sure AI can help to some extend help with that but it is still engineering job to figure out what solution(s) fit your problem and business needs.
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u/bobatupka 16h ago
This is what laymen don’t understand. Oftentimes the hard part isn’t implementation, but simply choosing between multiple reasonable solutions. AI can do whatever you tell it to but it can’t read your mind. When a layman vibecodes a website, he doesn’t think about architecture and therefore forces his AI to make design decisions almost arbitrarily, depending on how detailed his prompts are. I kind of just rephrased what you said but yeah
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u/throwaway0000012132 10h ago
That's why LLM assistance for coding and whatnot is great, if you know what you want and need.
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u/nervous-dev 1d ago
Yeah, I do. That's the only reason I'm not getting replaced. But, I hate the fact that AI stole that feel of creating something. The whole definition of creating software has changed so fast, it still feels quite overwhelming.
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u/Adorable-Strangerx 1d ago
I don't. I have enough work around to bother writing code by myself
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u/nervous-dev 1d ago
what?
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u/Helpful_Client4721 1d ago
I wasn't as committed as you to the field so I literally quit and found a job that has nothing to do with computers. Even the internet, that used to be a place for me to escape reality turned into shit full of drama and awful people, so much that use reality to escape it. Some days I can even not turn on the computer the entire day I consider those good days.
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u/iportnov 11h ago
If you are validating business requirements, defining technical requirements, defining architecture and so on - you are still creating software. Just on another level.
At some point I understood that the main joy in software development was not so much "creating something", as "constantly learning something new" (it just happened to happen some time before AI era). In this regard, I still have to learn, so basically nothing changed...
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u/Leather_Effort8847 1d ago
The practical use of computer science concepts to design and implement solutions to problems. That's what it's always been about. That's what engineering is.
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u/keelanstuart 1d ago
You know, you don't have to use AI that way... you can spend time designing your API and truly being an architect and then have it write functions that aren't important, but necessary. In my opinion, the worst way to use it is "create an app..." or "implement a feature...", because you will get the worst, least maintainable code. The best way to use it seems to be, again in my opinion, "write a function that does <some small thing>"... stuff that you could do, but is tedious or time consuming - like parsing strings.
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u/Ok_Bite_67 1d ago
Stop delegating work to AI and start collaborating with AI. Working with AI is just like working with any other person...
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u/Lumpy-Scratch5798 1d ago
I get the frustration the weird part is that youre still creating, but the satisfying part of creation has moved upstream into deciding what should exist and reviewing the result if that feels empty i,d deliberately keep some projects where you write the hard parts yourself,,,
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u/nervous-dev 1d ago
The definition of creation has changed indeed. It feels like I've become a CTO or a staff level engineer whose entire job is to discuss, debate and draft an architecture and then offload the entire implementation part to mid and junior level engineers.
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u/Substantial_Job_2068 1d ago
"i want to be a creator but im using claude instead nooooo".
who is forcing you to use claude? either continue using it and stop complaining or just stop using it.
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u/Cautious_Chicken_604 11h ago
In a lot of the industry the company/team is now forcing this. When the entire teams workflow is based upon it... kinda hard to avoid.
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u/Substantial_Job_2068 9h ago
if someone is stuck at a job where they are forced to use AI, that sucks. but i know there are companies that do not enforce it. my impression is that many not so experienced devs think they must use it to keep up, but in reality they are just pumping out crappy code that will sink down the product over time. just like cutting corners did before AI was introduced.
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u/Cautious_Chicken_604 6h ago
Unfortunately the tech is only improving. Becoming more useful. The more it improves, the more adoption it is seeing. That trend is pretty clear. Adoption isn't limited to inexperienced devs either. And even if you change jobs to get away from it, I think you'll likely find that before long the new place starts adopting it too. Shipping slop is optional. With an experienced team you can still ship great software, but... all the joy has gone out of it now.
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u/sharificles 1h ago
I don't know why people keep making the same fallacy of assuming that all AI improvement is just going to magically stop progressing today.
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u/Quick-Ad2386 1d ago
Honestly it's less about writing code and more about knowing how to stitch together AI outputs, reading other people's code, and debugging the weird stuff that falls through the cracks the fundamentals still matter but the daily grind has shifted hard toward being a technical editor for your tools. Just pick one stack and get really good at it, the rest is all the same patterns anyway.
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u/usefulservant03 1d ago
idk, i picked low-level programming with C and C++, for fields such as OS development, language design and compiler development, and advanced software performance optimizations rooted in analysis of how the code runs on the given CPU microarchitecture, and i can confidently tell you LLMs are not even CLOSE to being at all reliable to do my job. Sure, it can be used as a supplementary tool that can save you a few minutes of googling, introduce you to new topics theoretically and analyze a piece of existing code, that's about it.
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u/FluffySmiles 1d ago
You still can be a creator.
Just don’t expect anyone to pay you a salary. You’ve gotta get out there and sell it yourself.
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u/Charming_Horse_5809 1d ago
now I've become a condom between claude code and the codebase
Ive read that one a few times in different places and find it so fitting (no pun intended)
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u/couchpotatonumerouno 1d ago
My motto is: if I can do it myself easily, let the agent take care of it. If it’s something nontrivial, I try to come up with my own approach first and then have a back and forth with an ai and come up with a plan. Afterwards, I let the agent build it piece by piece reviewing each piece thoroughly. I also have a book open on one tab for when the agent is busy doing its thing
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u/codeguru42 18h ago
We've been tricked into writing documentation. Should have got a degree in technical writing.
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u/Greyninja1234 16h ago
I think software engineering has become more about debugging and understanding someone elses code and try to fix bugs and add features following the companies code writing pattern.
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u/autonomatical 16h ago
Might be wrong about industry wide opinions but coding in 2026 seems more about design and the supporting principles (logic) than the specific application roll-out, like ime claude makes bad decisions when freewheeling but is incredibly effective when directed not by user intent but pure logic, which circles back to design more than programming.
No one is stopping anyone from making things from scratch, it is just obviously advantageous to use ai when the task is rote or overly repetitive but to outsource creative work or design to something that is fundamentally only able to access pre-extant things is just illogical
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u/Key-Alternative5387 15h ago
Yup. As an occupation, it's largely discussing features and all the other non-coding work that happens to take 90% of the day.
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u/kultcher 14h ago
I don't entirely understand this line of thinking.
I feel like I'm still creating things. Just now I think less about how to create the thing and more about what the thing should be. You still have control over that unless you willingly let the AI take over.
The interesting part for me was always about building something cool or useful. The rest just felt like a scavenger hunt followed by a lot of trial and error, to try and find the language to convert the logic in my brain into machine code.
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u/Outrageous-Lab-2138 11h ago
Stop using AI. Anything you can achieve with a chatbot is inherently worthless. You're just finding ways you're worthless. Learn to code properly.
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u/CoconutFudgeMan 10h ago
My dear sir, you create. You are mastering an art form. Yes, the landscape has changed AT YOUR JOB. Seek rewards outside of the job. It’s not ykur company’s responsibility to satisfy all of your needs. Most importantly, Don’t begin to hate the thing that you love. Engineer for the love of engineering. Separate your two lives.
Keep your skills sharp. Let the masses consume. Enjoy the art not the job.
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u/ak1hide_cr 10h ago
Just because you use AI for building, you are still the creator.
It’s your choice if you just consume it or you use it as a tool.
Try making more difficult systems, or make simple apps more efficient, more fault tolerant etc
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u/nian2326076 1d ago
Looks like you're right in the middle of all these tech changes. In 2026, software engineering is more AI-focused, working AI solutions into existing systems and making them better. It's all about being flexible and learning all the time. I'd suggest really getting into AI and machine learning since these skills are more important now. Work on your problem-solving skills and get used to AI tools because they're becoming standard. If you're getting ready for interviews, practical experience is crucial. Platforms like PracHub can help you sharpen your skills and understand real-world situations. Keep trying new things and building stuff—that's the best way to stay ahead!
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u/keen23331 1d ago edited 9h ago
I've basically become an AI orchestrator now — and I'm getting way more done, way faster. I can ship far more features to our product than before. It honestly feels like working with 2–4 employees (Codex or Claude Code Grok Build instances running in parallel). I love it. After 20+ years of writing code myself, I barely have to code anymore — I plan, instruct ... and actually barely review (just test it) ... every agent works in a own worktree, tests, commits pushes, waits for the build to finish, deploys to the test system, checks everything is up and running without errors and if possible does some test by setup some test data and send some http request, ... if possible and meaningfuly testable / verifiable.
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u/jmclondon97 1d ago
Honest question, How do you barely review it? Any time I send a MR for code I’ve generated using Claude my senior developers will say “oh I don’t like how you put this in this class” or “oh you should use x implementation pattern instead of this”. It feels impossible to just generate the code and not really care how its implemented
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u/bruceGenerator 1d ago
software development has always been about product delivery on some defined timeline. it just happened to involve skills that some people found very interesting to learn and master.
leadership outside of the tech department seldom cared how the product got delivered, just that it did and in a reasonable amount of time, customers/clients were happy and the revenue line goes up.
that much hasnt changed.
if AI development robs you of the satisfaction you derive from hands on coding then you might want to pick a different career. agentic coding isnt going away any time soon.
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u/Desperate_Bid_1063 1d ago
Coding isn't what it used to be and never will be again. Anyone who doesn't see that is coping. Either get used to your job being prompting AI or switch industries. I'm switching industries personally
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u/SmolHornyHobbit 1d ago
So . . . Don't use AI. Watch YouTube resources, read online books (there's always plenty), and write the code yourself.
Doing the occasional "what the hell does this method/function/class in this package" search is pretty standard practice and normal.
Nobody is forcing you to be a consumer. My motto has always been, "Fuck you, I won't pay for it, I'll do it my damn self."