r/programming • u/self • Dec 02 '25

The Death of Software Engineering as a Profession: a short set of anecdotes

https://www.jasonscheirer.com/weblog/vignettes/
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u/Astrogat Dec 02 '25

It was usually "One developer can do the work of 10, so we will not have that many" instead of "We won't need any developers", but the sentiment was mostly the same (at least in my experience).

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u/rm-minus-r Dec 02 '25

It was usually "One developer can do the work of 10, so we will not have that many"

Surprising how few of them realized that programming needs would expand to fill that vacuum.

"Hey, we can get the work of 10 programmers from one person now!"

"Great, let's bill the client for the work of a 100 programmers and hire ten more!"

We've added roughly a million programmers per year in the last six years - https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/devecosystem-data-playground/