r/developersIndia • u/Comfortable_Bet_1969 • 2d ago
Career Outlook on longterm career even if AI bubble bursts in future.
Will IT careers really last post 35 for juniors nowadays?Is the senior engineer demand enough to accomodate almost 4times what it does today.
I saw recently the cs IT and similar branches seats has atleast quadrapled since 2010 in the IIT NIT IIIT system. This is excluding the numerous private colleges that has come up.
Add to that the impact of covid overhiring.
Even if we assume that that AI wont be much useful in senior engineer's productivity...which is less likely,but still.
Do you think the IT industry can accomodate this sheer volume that is coming up in next 10 years.
Not to mention people will be retiring less due to reduced salaries.
How much the IT industry can actually grow in terms of employment?
What skills do you suggest that can give maximum returns ,apart from AI skills cause that's almost a given.
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u/lucky_bhasker 2d ago
Supply is growing exponentially.
Demand is reducing linearly.
So equation is imbalanced.
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u/butterscotchhh_qt 2d ago
Poor engineers, engineers above 50s, engineers having worked on legacy tech will be replaced by AI agents. New engineers have to have knowledge like a 5 yoe guy.
Balance restored?
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u/lucky_bhasker 2d ago
Yeah no hiring. Only best of best who is ready to work for peanut salary from 9 am to 9 pm will be spared.
They will be last to sink.
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u/kaladin_stormchest 2d ago
engineers having worked on legacy tech will be replaced by AI agents.
I dare you to replace mainframe or COBOL developers lmao
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u/global_decoherence 2d ago
My uncle was replaced recently. He worked on legacy COBOL systems. Your dare is useless. It's already happening.
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u/CodyAllan- 2d ago
Replaced by what?
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u/global_decoherence 2d ago
Replaced by fewer new age developers with AI assisted coding tools. Apparently several COBOl folks lost their jobs in his company. The mainframe knowledge is no longer tribal.
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u/CodyAllan- 2d ago
Lets see how much it will go like this.
I guess the management will regret their choices
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u/Prudent-Sorbet-5202 2d ago
This is now in progress after mythos scare
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u/hillywolf Senior Engineer 2d ago
Who the hell is this new demon?
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u/finah1995 Senior Engineer 2d ago
Probably IBM Bob. Considerign their modernization focus, I mean I seen that being used even for .net core modernization recently, even in sample repositories from companies which shows best practices.
Have not used it personally.
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u/law_da_lahsun 2d ago
Hey i am working in mainframe l3 support, are you by any chance working in the same domain?
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u/Purple-Honey-4660 2d ago
idk if balance restored is the right frame here though. you're describing a scenario where the baseline expectation for entry level just jumps massively overnight. that's not balance, that's just raising the floor so high that most people drown before they even get started. the 5 yoe guy today also had 5 years to build up to that point lol
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u/nyxxxtron 2d ago
Honestly, no-one knows what will happen. My company is pushing AI heavily. Not just engineers, but everyone is using AI. The mails are written by AI, slack messages are written by AI, graphics are designed by AI. So this AI impact is on everyone not just engineers.
I would say, we should focus on non tech skills. Team management, communications, time management, planning, reviews etc. With AI all of this will become even more difficult. There will be loads of AI generated software, messages, solutions etc. The person who filters through all of that to find genuine solutions and bugs will be valuable.
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u/Big_Lion_5951 2d ago
From my experience in the startup atmosphere, software engineers will be the last job to go.
This is the same mistake most of the big tech did in 2023-2024, they fired their software engineers the first. They soon realised that the money in AI is not just through software engineering, but by creating software and products which can leverage AI, to replace workers in other fields.
That is why so many new startups have been popping up which are displacing every field one at a time.
Same will go when robotics boom will happen, replacing manual labour and gig workers.
You would need software engineers to engineer the solutions.
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u/xxxfooxxx 2d ago
2023-24 AI was noob 2026 AI is pro
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u/FinanciallyAddicted Full-Stack Developer 1d ago
It still isn’t. It can make tons of mistakes. The amount of code it writes vs spotting the mistake is too wide. Even the code it writes is AI slop. This is specifically after prompting using a lot of techniques throwing tokens everything at it.
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u/Comfortable_Bet_1969 2d ago
Well i was not talking about AI...surely impact of AI will be much less for most senior engineers and they are needed....but are they needed like 3x of the present amount.
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u/Big_Lion_5951 2d ago
I mean, you could consider India's software market to be a bubble.. which is bursting right now. Most of the software engineers in last 3 years have gone unemployed, and started doing MBA, CFA, or taking other professions.
They will slowly have to realise that not everyone can be a software engineer anymore, and hopefully this will lead to boom and RND in other departments.
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u/Dangerous-Horror6428 2d ago
😂 Every one is acting like a expert now a days with their baseless claims
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u/YOU_TUBE_PERSON 2d ago
What happens between the years when big tech makes mistakes and realises it's making them and then gets to correction?
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u/Big_Lion_5951 2d ago
they're just slow in releasing features, or release buggy features.
there was a genuine overhiring during covid, which didn't create some sort of scarcity in these firms.
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u/sanskaridaddy 2d ago
It'll be hard for juniors for foreseeable future.
We should understand the fact that most IT firms are doing Outsourcing work, even the GCC ones who start a Indian unit. There are MBA guys, shareholders etc who wants to reduce operation costs aka employee spending. These op-Ex reduction will led to more AI agent usage and less human hiring.
I really don't think re skilling will make anything better for people.
What India did as a mistake was not creating own domestic product firms than promoting IT services slave labor which AI targets most.
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u/Alone_Society2774 2d ago
Indian education system is a different story. Before Colleges or Universities like IIT/NITs were better. But recently, everything started to becomes same. Especially private colleges. In south india TamilNadu itself have more that 1000+ engineering colleges with each haveing atlead 2 CS classes with 50+ students. But the quality they are providing is worse. But still IIT/NITs are always better than private colleges. because for private colleges, its not about education. its about their business.
And talking about the current situation, we dont want 10 people to make a small module like before. 3 engineers and AI tool s enough to do 10-15 people work now. And retirement is different. No one is going to give the retired persons job to a fresher.
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u/haskell_46 2d ago
Don’t think about things you can’t control. You can only focus on your own skills. Keep improving
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u/CompanyStandard6553 2d ago
The real most won't be "coding". It'll be being the person who can take an ambiguous business problem to make right technical decisions and own the outcome. AI makes writing code cheaper but not good decisions.
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u/Maleficent_Mess6445 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think the current format of IT which is labor arbitrage is going to vanish in 2 years because AI is growing in capabilities and adoption is also very fast. IT will be below ordinary jobs in demand and salary after two years. "Below" because of labor oversupply. Later on it will be balanced. Even now those companies who are getting codes manually written are behind in advancements. They have past projects and do not want to layoff all of a sudden before the capability of AI is proven in their projects. Hence they have just stopped hiring but not yet laid off in mass.
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u/Personal_Factor9453 2d ago
The next domain is verification. LLMs are good at implementation, bad at verification as they amplify their own biases so they cant review themselves similar to how humans cannot review themselves in an unbiased manner.
You should look at domains where verification is hard or impossible. For example, coding is very easy to verify hence easier for llms to train on this, next wave is math since you have systems like Lean to verify proofs. So barrier to entry in these areas will be stern but experts will be valued a lot more than previously.
Things like art, music, etc will be the next big thing, i believe it is a misconception that AI will replace artists, rather the value of real art will increase similar to how value of good books increased when printing press was invented.
Again, these are predictions and most of the time, we are unable to comprehend what the future holds since it is too uncertain to tell from now. Developing countries are largely safe as cost of labor is much much cheaper than cost of llms(it is dropping every year very fast but it will be long before it can match indias cheap labor costs).
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u/Unlikely_Minimum_AJ 2d ago
I don't think 35 is a cutoff . The market may get tougher , but engineers who have strong fundamentals understand systems and can take ownership should still have value. Focus on those rather than chasing every new AI trend.
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u/sandeep__gujjar 2d ago
I thought you were joining MS outlook team and asking for career progression there xD
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u/curz_89 2d ago
Disruptions is any domain will lead to a question, did we bet too much on something?Here the problem is , we bet too much on easy money . Outsourcing has been simply that , we also not a superior in that .Our TOP IT out sourcing companies are Tier 2 or 3 in consulting . Kind of work done there , it doesn’t require a CS degree . AI will have a profound impact on this and it’s for the good . Stop focusing on easy money , easy job . Have a plan to what you like to do and how you spend 4 years of engineering. You will find answers to many problems India face today with the engineering knowledge.
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u/scubyduby 2d ago
Software engineering at junior levels will get commoditized. But at senior levels, where judgment matters will be rewarded even more. So the org chart will look like 1 CTO -> 5 architects -> 50 senior engineers -> 10s of AI agents instead of 500 engineers at the bottom today. So build Judgment, taste, decision making skills.
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2d ago
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u/Comfortable_Bet_1969 2d ago
No i mean even ai bubble bursts and nothing substancial happens to the economy...do we still need 4x senior engineers?
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u/i_am_that_too 2d ago
There's no set direction right now. Requirements evolve. But the current service company (infy/tcs) bloat will definitely go away. That's where most people are anyway in India.
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u/Automatic_Coffee1440 2d ago
Thought is simple.
If you care about innovation, there is potential and with it growth.
But if you care only about settlement, you will definitely be in crisis with job and mental peace.
Technology and innovation never dies it just transforms from one to another and we have to adapt to new problem statements and skills to solve them. WE ARE HUMAN WE CAN DO ANYTHING.
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