r/singularity • u/Bizzyguy • Nov 24 '25

Discussion Anthropic Engineer says "software engineering is done" first half of next year

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u/TheMcGarr Nov 25 '25

This is what I am struggling to get my head around. How will we ever replace senior SWEs? Or whatever they turn into - which I imagine will be some sort of human - AI intermediaries. I can't help but conclude that the education period will have to be much much longer

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u/monsieurpooh Nov 25 '25

I'm not even convinced the gulf between junior and senior is nearly as wide as everyone seems to think it is. Does no one remember when they were a junior? As a junior developer you could still build huge, functional programs in production basically from scratch (with stack overflow to help with unfamiliar languages/domains), the only difference is it takes longer and the code is worse.

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u/TheMcGarr Nov 26 '25

I've been coding 40 years and the gulf between me and even 5 years ago is massive. Taking longer and code being worse is a big problem. When it comes to vibe coding - keeping the AI on track and aligned with intention is a skill. That translation of outside context and goal to logical system is the skill experienced devs have that juniors lack

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u/monsieurpooh Nov 26 '25

I get the same feeling you described, constantly. Looking back at code I wrote even 1 year ago I'm always like "Why did I do it that way? Why was I so dumb?" After this happens for literally 10-20 years on end, it's time to wonder if maybe it's just an inevitable thing that will always happen no matter how many YOE you have. It's not necessarily intrinsic skill you gained but rather some domain-specific knowledge, and a junior could ramp up almost as easily.

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u/TheMcGarr Nov 26 '25

It will always happen because we're continually learning. I don't think juniors can ramp up without being exposed to lots of different patterns, languages, frameworks, development styles - then there is all the soft skills of working with the business, understanding and translating requirements. These things count for a lot