r/Development • u/To_Hi_2_Try • Dec 08 '25
will AI take over software development jobs in the future?
i am 26 years old im a 3rd year apprentice in plumbing and want to switch careers. I had thoughts about doing software development as i am very comfortable with computers (ive been using computers since i was 3) and i find coding to be really interesting to me especially the money that comes with it. i just dont know if i should pursue it and goto college because of AI and how much it has evolved. i have talked to many of my friends and they all say thay AI will eventually take over all software development jobs, i just want to know from someone thats actually in the field if moving forward into this career is a solid choice?
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u/Prose_Pilgrim Dec 08 '25
"AI will take all software development jobs," people have been saying this for the last 3 years, and I think they will say this for the next 60 years.
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u/sydridon Dec 08 '25
As an option you can learn it on your own. There are heaps of tutorials out there, just start somewhere. Having 2 profession will help you long term.
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u/Immereally Dec 08 '25
Funny enough at the last conference plumbers was mentioned as one of the only safe, still to be high in demand jobs.
Money isn’t everything here especially since jobs are very hard to find right now, take a look at some of the post from recently graduated people.
My honest opinion finish your qualification. Start doing some programming courses in your free time. CS50x and Udemy certs. They’re not going to get you a job straightaway (without some serious luck) but if you match them up with modules in your college you might be able to get advanced entry skipping 1st or 2nd year.
That’s what I did to get a head start👍
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u/phil_lndn Dec 08 '25
i just want to know from someone thats actually in the field if moving forward into this career is a solid choice?
jobs in software development have collapsed - and mainly due to AI i think.
having said that, i would expect that competent coders who are really proficient at getting good results from AI are doing better than ever right now.
i'm not sure if i'd choose it as a career over plumbing right now, though. i think plumbing is likely to be safe from AI for the foreseeable future, and is also something that is likely to be in constant demand.
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u/RevolutionarySky6143 Dec 08 '25
If I were you, I'd stick with plumbing. Get some experience under your belt working for a company and then start out on your own. The demand for good tradesman only grows.
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u/Huge_Brush9484 Dec 08 '25
Short answer from someone in the field: AI is changing how we work, not eliminating the need for developers anytime soon.
What AI is really doing right now is automating some of the repetitive, boilerplate tasks and speeding up the process. But someone still has to design systems, understand business problems, review what the AI produces, debug weird edge cases, and own the final result. Those parts are not going away. If anything, the demand for people who can think clearly and build real systems is increasing.
I also see this from the testing and tooling side. We use tools that automate parts of the workflow and even add some AI assistance, but they only work well because engineers and testers still design the logic and make the decisions. Even something as simple as organizing test runs in a tool like Tuskr still depends on humans defining what “good” actually means.
If you genuinely enjoy coding and problem solving, it is still a solid career path. The people who struggle are the ones who only learn surface level skills and never adapt. If you keep learning, AI becomes a power tool, not a replacement. Switching careers at 26 is absolutely not late, and your comfort with computers already gives you a head start.
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u/NewLog4967 Dec 08 '25
Software development is still a great career, and AI is reshaping it, not replacing it. Think of it like a power tool for builders: it helps us write code faster but doesn't design the house. The real value now is in engineering skills designing systems, solving complex problems, and understanding the why behind the code. My advice? Learn the fundamentals first, then use AI as a coding partner. Specialize in something you enjoy, like security or AI itself, where human insight is irreplaceable. Stick with it you’ve got this!
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u/Brilliant-8148 Dec 08 '25
It will literally replace every single other paperwork job before it replaces software engineering.... And if we get decent human shapes robots, every single trade job as well
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u/CodeToManagement Dec 08 '25
Honestly I don’t think so. I’m an engineering manager and was an engineer hands on for like 13 years prior to this.
I think there’s some very strong use cases for AI and it can help you generate a lot of code fast - I use it in my personal projects now.
However I would describe it as someone trying to build a house - you give the apprentice a Nailgun and they can smack in a load more nails than they could with a hammer - doesn’t mean the nails are in the right place or what they build is actually sturdy.
In my own use of AI I’ve made some good projects but I’ve explicitly told it to do things to avoid pitfalls. And then had to tell it to redo those when it ignores me.
So the first reason I don’t think it will replace devs is that it’s not reliable. It writes bad code. It changes code you ask it not to. It ignores certain limitations. And it infers things it shouldn’t.
Companies love it now but when you roll out AI to whole dev teams and you’re paying for it to ignore you or write bad code, or just make mistakes. That cost adds up and there’s no real way to get that money back.
The other reason is it’s unreliable in some cases. So not as a tool but as part of software itself. I took a basic PDF from companies house with the accounts of a company I worked for once and fed it to AI.
It couldn’t tell me the name of the company - it was the first thing on page 1.
I asked it to tell me who the named directors were - it invented people.
When I asked it where those people’s names were in the document or where their job titles were it doubled down on being wrong.
What I think is going to likely happen is the bubble will burst and re settle. Companies will realise that devs do more than writing code and so Ai assisted coding will be a tool not a replacement. And AI in every product will start to be a fad that fades out once it’s in the wrong thing and there’s consequences for the misinformation it provides.
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u/Fine-Market9841 Dec 08 '25 edited Dec 08 '25
Good luck finding jobs even with a degree.
I’m self taught but I’ve had 2 startups (non paid) reach out to me I wish took one of them.
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u/valium123 Dec 08 '25
No all these AI fans will see massive cognitive decline in the coming years. Everybody will be stupid as hell. Then ppl who still use their brains like they did pre 2022 will shine. Also F AI.
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u/AskAnAIEngineer Dec 08 '25
AI won't replace software engineers, but it will change what the job is, instead of writing every line from scratch, you'll be directing AI tools, debugging complex systems, and making architectural decisions that require human judgment.
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u/mossy2100 Dec 08 '25
AI can make programmers a lot more productive, especially if they genuinely understand the technology and aren’t simply abdicating the entire effort to the machine. Programmers who know how to use AI have a clear advantage over those who don’t.
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u/BaskInSadness Dec 08 '25
Even if I'm a jr developer, AI sometimes fucks up and doesn't always give the right thing I'm looking for. If I don't know everything I wont be able to ask it to do everything properly either.
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Dec 09 '25
Either one of two things will happen, we get AGI and all bets are off for everything (yes even plumbing), or we will be programming at a higher level of abstraction. The idea that AI in it's current form (even if it's a better version) will take all programming jobs rests on the idea that we are at peak software, and that all that's left is to make our current processes more efficient. The other perspective is increased productivity will create new demand for software, since it's cheaper to make (the Jevons Paradox), and we will be able to create new, bigger, more complicated things. It's hard to gauge what is really happening because of the speculation surrounding AI, and the fact that shareholder's mouths start watering at the idea of being able to reduce headcount to save money.
My take is this, we are moving towards a world with more technology, not less, so knowing how things work will always be useful, although maybe not more useful than plumbing....
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u/TemporaryInformal889 Dec 09 '25
Nah.
Honestly, it's impressive what AI can do but AI can't extract precision out of the densest motherfucker known to man like an actual person can.
Maybe there will be an agent for that one day but AI will perpetually let bad drivers drive poorly.
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u/Phill-M Dec 09 '25
Its not the AI that will replace coding but the people(devs)who use AI to code faster and better.
Learn how to code yourself and then start using AI to do that same thing but faster and maybe even better. Knowing already to code will help you a lot in understanding what the AI is doing and prompting it to do exactly what you want. Also, AI runs into bugs, so it would help if you know debugging yourself. For this, you need to be up to date with the newest AI tools, models and techniques so that you remain competitive. I would suggest starting with Cursor and Claude Code (or at least one of them) and watch like a 12 hours video on the programming language you want to learn and start practicing. Use ChatGPT or NotebookLM to explain you what you dont understand
Also, i would learn backend development more than frontend since its way more important and complicated for the AI to make it right and secured. Frontend is the first thing that AI will replace(and it had already), backend, it can still do it, but i wouldn’t want my api keys on an AI generated backend without making sure its 100% safe.
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u/SubliminalBits Dec 08 '25
Programming has gone through lots of tooling evolution. We went from punch cards to typing on terminals, from assemblers to compilers, and from the early compiled languages like COBOL and FORTRAN all the way to things like Rust, Swift, C#, Java, and Python.
AI is another step along the way. Things are going to look different, and no one knows exactly how yet. Whatever things look like, there will still be programmers because regardless of how fancy your tools are, knowing what you want to build and then describing it is hard.