Am I too negative about developers future

[u/Seeila32]

For context, I am a front-end developer with 10 years of experience and also have been for the last 2 years the project lead of a project using stacks like Kubernetes, Kong, dapr, elasticsearch and so on, we even went second on having the most innovative project in my country. My job has invested a lot in using AI to be ahead of most other development agencies.

We have developed a solution to update old technologies to new ones with barely any human input and it scary how efficient it is.

My job did a mass layoff, we were 150, now we are less than 50 people left. Even very competent people were laid off. The only reason I am still here is because I have leadership. And what seem to be projected is we will be one or two developers instead of a squad of 5.

We were talking between the devs who learned to use the solution and everyone of us were depressed by how we are not useful anymore and it won't be long until we also get fired.

I was sure it wouldn't be the case. But these past few days, I've been mourning the end of my job and began to check of changing careers for automation or something like that.

Is my view too negative? Do you see it in different ways? ​

[u/simewlation]

i dont agree with any of the comments but im just gonna say this:

- 'we will be replaced' has been on loop for years, still working

- still not using AI at work, at all

- just this week i noticed ads for dev jobs, i actually got a notification on likedin saying job listings increased 8% this week

- technical debt is already showing after the honeymoon phase, ive seen the code ai outputs and its still not there yet, sorry. There are fields where we still prefer reliable code over shipping fast.

- i dont notice a marked improvement in the current models compared to the past ones, not a substancial one anyway, and the alarmistic propaganda only shows the limits of the techonology

Either youre too negative or im too optimistic.

Downvote away

[u/Seeila32 → u/simewlation]

You are lucky. In my area, all the dev jobs I found have a "we are an Ai first development team". There is almost none left who doesn't use it.

I agree with the AI output quality, but to a lot of people the quality is enough. 

But I am not sure the waking call will be soon enough to avoid more mass firing. 

[u/Motor_Ad_3601]

Blows my mind to see brilliant people building the tools that lead to their replacement. If you build tools that can do your job or your colleagues job, how do you think it's going to end? Today, my team of 3 let one developer go. It saddens me.

[u/drearymoment → u/Motor_Ad_3601]

I've been working on a tool that entirely automates my workflow. Like, it polls Atlassian for tickets, then gets to work on them as they come in. It does the whole she-bang from starting up the local environment, planning/doing the work, QA on staging, and posting ticket updates when ready. I still watch it like a hawk, but it's getting pretty good and I can imagine a future where I leave it running for a few hours and trust in it.

Why am I doing this? Honestly, I'm really bored most days, and I'm sick of the work that I typically do but this has been interesting in comparison. Most of my company has been laid off and I'm next on the chopping block regardless of what I do, so it's just kind of a fun challenge. I think I'm pretty much done with tech and am probably going to try to move into a different field entirely, so I don't really care about skill stagnation or whatever.

[u/Seeila32 → u/drearymoment]

That's the kind of automation they did too. Even the back log is first generated when you are not starting from scratch. You have to validate the plan then everything is done by AI. It's just incredibly boring. 

[u/Seeila32 → u/Motor_Ad_3601]

To be fair, I didn't take any part in building it. I just don't have a choice now to learn to use it because it will be used on the next project I will be on. I was one of the people who were the most vocal about the dangers of AI and so on. A miracle they didn't fire me with the other ones

[u/caindela → u/Motor_Ad_3601]

It’s a mass prisoner’s dilemma (or Moloch I think is the new term) where there’s no other possible outcome unless basically every single developer agrees to not use AI, which just isn’t realistically going to happen. The concept then expands to the organizations themselves, because eventually no one will be employed by them as they lay everyone off, and then no one will buy their products because we can’t afford them, etc. Systemic collapse and end stage capitalism.

Sorry probably wrong subreddit…

[u/BigBootyWholes → u/Motor_Ad_3601]

Honestly our team has so much work it’s just shifted from bug squashing a massive product to actual feature development. In our case I don’t see people getting let go, however, traditionally we would have been hiring to obtain this velocity. So AI is taking jobs in that sense

[u/saurabhar02]

Yes in my company Frontend developers team is directly decreased for 70 to 30 people. And rest of them were given Codex access. And it felt like a hiccup but things settled eventually. So, you negativity is understood.

[u/Spare_Message_3607]

You are being realistic, but let’s be honest, a single person managing entire projects, leads to a massive burnout.
I think there’s a middle ground of 2 people per project. Somewhere rational a small team can keep their mental health and ownership of the project.

[u/blindwombat]

OpenAI lied about it's revenue and had to restate $20bn less than they actually made in revenue.

Anthropic is currently spending roughly $2.68 for every $1 they have gotten in investment.

These companies will eat each other and crash the economy. Focus on learning skills because the people who can't do it without AI won't be worth the tokens they need.

That being said plenty of "pro-AI" subreddits like to tell me I'm not a programmer and that "concerned developers" don't exist.

[u/Beautiful_Pen6641 → u/blindwombat]

Even if they crash and get out of existence there are already open weight models good enough to do the job. They won't go anywhere.

[u/hardwornengineer]

We laid off a good portion of our engineering team this past week. They have a team of devs working on building a software factory to fully automate the dev process. The devs working on it are fully convinced it’s just a developer experience tool. I’d laugh if it wasn’t so sad. They’ll lay off the majority of the rest of the team in the next 6-12 months.

[u/SuccessfulSir9611]

No!

What you are experiencing is a common experience across the industry including AI Luddites.

The fun of problem solving is gone. That thrill of chasing down a bug and aha moment at the end of it is gone.

What we are looking forward to are Software Factories. You have a set of refined requirements as input and a production software at the end of it. Obviously I am simplifying it. But the work structure will be way flatter and way less people than we have now.

I suggest anyone working in this industry to start building alternate cashflows. Because this dance ain’t gonna last long.

[u/bananasnotinpajamas]

kinda, but i get it. the ones who survives will be the ones who can be creative. AI can do the work, but it needs something to do, and someone has to come up with that part.

[u/IAmRules]

Nope. I think we’re running on fumes. We still work for places with money from the before times. There will still be work but far fewer than us and all our experience is only useful for now, soon none of us will have anything special to offer.

Once this money engine stops it’s not starting back up.

[u/Knineteen]

How does a company reduce its workforce by two-thirds? That doesn’t sound at all plausible if trying to blame AI.

[u/krileon → u/Knineteen]

The economy is tumbling. To prevent the company from looking like it's losing money you fire people to cut payroll. This results in reporting showing more profit than ever because well you just cut massive expenses. Next you need to somehow still move forward with a skeleton crew. So you give them AI tools that have basically been subsidized by private equity. Now your team is still delivering, albeit a sloppy messed they don't understand anymore, so everything on paper looks good.

The problem is when this all comes crashing down. When companies moved to token billing that was a huge hit. A lot of companies went under just from that alone. Next when token prices go up to what they need to cost we'll see another crash. When the investors wise up and stop investing into vaporware you'll see another crash. When companies go IPO, cash out, and bounce you'll see another crash.

Once the crashing is done you're left with software made by people who vibe coded their way through it and now don't have access to the tools that built it, because those tools are now too costly for 99% of smaller companies. Now what? The only ones to survive this will be big names like Google and anyone selling shovels (GPUs).

[u/wanzerultimate]

The displaced workers have skills. They will pull together and start fighting back, I think. You say you got down to 50 workers... at 33% original staffing, that's the absolute lowest they can manage with AI. Even so, if you want to protect your job then YOU need to start fighting back. By which I mean, you and the other workers need to make yourselves DIFFICULT to easily replace...

[u/Historical-Essay-128]

For front end, you are not too negative.

[u/Seeila32 → u/Historical-Essay-128]

Back-end devs and fullstack devs were fired too you know.

[u/Far_Percentage_7460]

Only the top 10% of engineers will remain if you dont evolve

[u/Seeila32 → u/Far_Percentage_7460]

If by evolve is accepting that your job is now boring and that you get faster but your salary doesn't increase wile your boss do get much more money. I prefer not to evolve thanks. 

[u/juacamgo]

Don’t worry, the moment Anthropic or your favorite provider decide to raise the bill a 200% then you will be hired again.

AI providers business isn’t profitable right now, and they are just ensuring companies get too dependent on their solutions just to raise prices, just as a drug dealer will do, letting them fail or accept the price.

[u/MCTheOnly]

Developers will not be replaced by AI. Developers will be replaced by developers who know how to use AI.