from Hacker News

Why is everyone trying to replace Software Engineers?

by akulkarni on 2/13/25, 3:49 PM with 139 comments

by datadrivenangel on 2/13/25, 4:13 PM
From 2011: "Don’t call yourself a programmer: “Programmer” sounds like “anomalously high-cost peon who types some mumbo-jumbo into some other mumbo-jumbo.” If you call yourself a programmer, someone is already working on a way to get you fired. You know Salesforce, widely perceived among engineers to be a Software as a Services company? Their motto and sales point is “No Software”, which conveys to their actual customers “You know those programmers you have working on your internal systems? If you used Salesforce, you could fire half of them and pocket part of the difference in your bonus.”" [0]
0 - https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...
by taylodl on 2/13/25, 4:14 PM
> Your job was never to write code, it is to solve problems for your users. They are why we have a job. You need to talk with the users, empathize with them, understand their problems and feel their pains. This is much too important to be left exclusively in the hands of product managers and designers. You are the problem solver, so you need to fully understand the problem.
Adding to this point, LLMs won't fully understand the problem, so they're simply incapable of developing complete solutions. I've had a lot of success with these tools in developing functions, but at that point I've already architected and designed the solution. Even so, it saves time. These should be regarded as developer productivity tools, not developer replacement tools.
by pianoben on 2/13/25, 4:09 PM
They aren't trying to replace us in earnest, yet. They are using the threat to beat down wages, and to more generally tilt the power balance further in favor of ~capital~ employers.
"Replacement" is smoke and mirrors at this point; anyone who seriously tries it will quickly fail, with today's technology.
by ep103 on 2/13/25, 4:18 PM
> Scientist: Hurrah! We have created an algorithm that can mimic human speech!
> CEO: Fantastic! I've already fired all of the doctors and nurses, how soon can it start doing surgeries?
> Scientist: ...
by prewett on 2/13/25, 4:26 PM
I was part of a group people that tended towards artsy (and definitely not rationalist). This was when everyone had an idea for a new app, and I kept getting people trying to get me to work for equity. They seemed to have these same kinds of unrealistic expectations. I eventually came to the conclusion that they saw software as like painting. It seems to take about 8 - 24 hrs to create a work of art (assuming the idea is complete and you are working within your skill level), so their mental price and timeline was something similar.
A better metaphor for software is like writing a book. Everyone sees writing a book as borderline undoable, and the expectation is that it takes months and months. I think that software and writing have a lot in common (including lots of text, and even the verb used), and that explaining ourselves as book-writers would help set better expectations.
by dcchambers on 2/13/25, 4:39 PM
One word: money.
They (CEOs and executives, shareholders, etc) don't like how much it costs to make software. They think software engineers make too much money.
You (a human) are always a cost they will try to reduce.
by insane_dreamer on 2/13/25, 4:23 PM
The same reason all companies try to reduce labor: cut costs, better returns for shareholders.
There's nothing special about SWEs vs any other class of worker. If they can be replaced or eliminated, they will be, just like any other worker.
by StefanBatory on 2/13/25, 4:10 PM
Because:
1) We're expensive (at least for Poland, I can aim for ~6-8k PLN monthly after few years of experience. Other, even civil/mech engineers will have around 4-6k monthly with similar experience) [edit: and minimal wage is 3.5k after taxes]
2) It appears to be replaceable (you can replace us with LLMs to an extent, you can't do that with other jobs)
by whiplash451 on 2/13/25, 4:14 PM
"Not all programming problems can be solved with pattern matching"
Says who? How do you know if solving programming problems is not just advanced pattern matching?
The fact that we find most (if not all) of our solutions on SO or talking to colleagues points towards the pattern matching hypothesis quite strongly.
To be clear: I am talking about the programming aspect of the job only, not the other important things (talking to customers/product managers, crafting solutions, etc.)
by gmt2027 on 2/13/25, 4:48 PM
AI is an existential threat to tech companies not software engineers.
In many domains, the scope and complexity of software systems goes beyond the ability of a single software engineer to manage. A coordination layer becomes necessary when the number of engineers required goes beyond a threshold (say 5 or so). When the development effort must be coordinated over extended periods (say several months or years), mechanisms to raise capital and manage risk become necessary. These functions are why companies exist.
Consider that a massive increase in software engineer productivity will make coordination unnecessary for many kinds of software. In the market that opens up, companies with expensive executives, middle management and coordination inefficiencies will not be competitive. Smaller shops with a solo engineer or a team of less than 5 will outcompete larger players because their costs will be significantly lower. Massive one-size-fits-all products will be harder to justify when a small dev shop can quickly build or customise software for the unique requirements of a business or niche.
Before the CEOs stop needing engineers, engineers will stop needing CEOs and managers to coordinate their efforts and raise capital.
by codr7 on 2/13/25, 4:18 PM
Software developers are basically the only thing standing between the morons and profit at any cost to society, because some of us don't feel like playing that game and they couldn't do it without us if their life depended on it.
I realize they think they they finally can do it by themselves, or rather by hooking up a bunch of fresh bootcamp devs with AI; and I look forward to watching them crash, burn and come back begging for help.
by kasajian on 2/13/25, 4:47 PM
I'm a software developer. I've been trying to replace myself with code since I started writing code in the early 80s.
by burnte on 2/13/25, 5:05 PM
Because the rich would rather spend money on things they can own than spending on people. If I spend a million dollars on an AI cluster to replicate my programmer, it'll never need another vacation, never complain about conditions, never argue, never balk at unethical requests, etc.
by datadrivenangel on 2/13/25, 4:11 PM
Bean counters don't like specialists, because they can't evaluate the value of specialists without having that specialist knowledge themselves...
by api on 2/13/25, 4:27 PM
I've been predicting for some time that if AI makes it much easier and faster to write software, this will increase software engineer employment.
It will grow the sector and massively inflate the combinatorial explosion of system X system X system. Programmers will use AI as a tool in their tool box -- I already do for boilerplate and tests and explaining code -- and they'll use it to write ever more software to work with ever more systems.
What it may do though is cut the bottom off the field. Very junior programming jobs could vanish, creating more of a learning cliff to really get into it. This is happening in every discipline and has been for a while. It's a real problem for our traditional method of school followed by entry level job. I think the future's going to be some kind of school integrated with apprenticeship followed by internship followed by a real job. Unfortunately that may suck in a lot of ways. Fields that are like that require too much 'paying your dues.'
by bob1029 on 2/13/25, 5:23 PM
I think the more realistic long term victims will be implementation specialists and business analysts. The middlemen who sit between product (developer) and customer.
Giving your product the ability to talk & work directly with the customer seems to me a much more valuable activity than covering all the edge cases that would arise during the development of such a solution with an LLM.
Remember, everything is a function [0] and LLMs support calling them. The trick is having the skill and domain expertise to establish bounded contexts and prompts that align with realistic product use cases and transition between them cleanly.
I know there is a lot of doubt that users would enjoy using a chat interface, but I strongly believe it would be popular as long as it actually works. If it's not well designed and the GUI tools are faster even for a novice, you will have wasted a lot of time/money for nothing.
[0] https://youtu.be/zHU1xH6Ogs4
by la_fayette on 2/13/25, 4:35 PM
I have my own side projects, which I hoped I could make much faster progress with LLMs. Didn't work... Actually, it decreased progress. LLMs don't code themselves and explaining things to them takes an enormous amount of time and they misunderstand things so much. How could somebody think a statistical parrot can replace any kind of knowledge work?
by ilikerashers on 2/13/25, 4:19 PM
My view is that Ai companies saw there was a huge volume of code online and decided coding was a text generation problem and easy to replace.
I don't buy it. I also don't think it'll replace writers or artists. Just the low brow, chum bucket stuff which in programming terms is a todo app or web form.
by CharlieDigital on 2/13/25, 4:18 PM
You need strong guys to move things around because you don't have a pneumatic crane.
Now you have pneumatic crane, you can move stacks and stacks of things around with ease. You need less strong guys around and instead there is a new need for fewer people that are well-trained on how to operate this pneumatic crane safely. You'll get more work done with less people.
That's what's happening with software engineering and LLM copilots; it's an industrialization of coding. You don't need 20 engineers to get that product out. You need a few that are really good operators of the machinery. Adept at prompting and reviewing code instead of writing code.
by from-nibly on 2/14/25, 3:54 AM
They are trying one last gamble to keep the bubble from popping. Most of the software companies don't make sense unless you can fire half your staff.
The idea that this is possible justifies the AI bubble and the software bubble at the same time.
by galacticaactual on 2/13/25, 4:16 PM
I don't know. Why are you software engineers always trying to replace everyone else?
by agentultra on 2/13/25, 4:18 PM
It's pretty simple if you take the view that there are only two classes in a capitalist society: those who profit from owning capital and those whose only capital is their bodies and thus profit from their labour.
The former own land, companies, and such assets that they profit from the difference in value between what is sold and the wages they pay labourers to produce that value.
Those people profit from wages going down.
One way to do that is to gain leverage over the job market by threatening to remove access to labourers. Unless those labourers are willing to accept a lower wage they can be replaced by AI and nobody will need them anymore.
Another way they can increase their profits is to force labourers to use GenAI tools to produce their work. There's constant pressure from the capital class to, "always improve productivity!" This is just another example of that.
I suspect there will come a point, perhaps, where some companies will decide to let developers go who refuse to use GenAI (or simply not hire them to begin with).
I don't know that we will see the technology become sophisticated enough to replace human developers entirely.
by itishappy on 2/13/25, 4:18 PM
Software Engineers build the tools, so I feel it shouldn't be surprising that one of the first areas it's being applied is the domain it's inventors are most familiar with.
by MangoCoffee on 2/13/25, 4:29 PM
"Why is everyone trying to replace software engineers?" – Is this an oxymoron?
Companies will always look for ways to save money, and headcount is usually the biggest cost
by tayo42 on 2/13/25, 4:15 PM
I think it's just software engineers that are making the ai software. They make it do what they know how to do. It's fun in a hacker kind of way to make the computer write code.
Well slowly see more Ai intersect with other jobs as people with hobbies that can engineer make things.
Assuming Ai actually delivers what it promises in the first place
by paulsutter on 2/13/25, 4:16 PM
Software engineering is exactly the skill needed to think of, design, and debug large valuable systems. AI will become a better and better tool to give us more leverage to make a dent in the world. We’re just going to do much bigger things. Much much bigger
The job won’t last forever, but it will outlive almost every other job
by bigbones on 2/13/25, 4:21 PM
The frequency of AI cope posts appears set to keep increasing until the very last one of us is fired. The reality is that users simply don't care about any concern to be found discussed in the church of software engineering, they want an app with a pink button, and very shortly we will be a much higher friction means to achieve that than the sloppy text generator. It's the same force behind why you can't buy high quality furniture any more or consumer devices that survive more than a few years: the vast majority of people simply don't care, they want to click "Buy" at a price level they don't have to think about and get on with their lives, only now it applies to knowledge economy work and entire industries are trying their hardest to ignore the transition we're so painfully obviously already in.
Even were it not the case for disposable CRUD Android/web apps that represent the bread and butter for half the industry, the effect on the structure of popular media is alarming in ways I don't think anyone has a hope of understanding yet. I imagine kids coming up now will not be glued to their phones anywhere nearly like the current batch are, or if they are glued to something, perhaps it is a conversational agent prompting them through an earpiece or similar.
Hand-wringing about the quality of LLM-driven app development really misses the point of all of this. We're currently using an extremely novel technology to emulate aspects of our now-defunct technology (which I believe includes the web), in much the same way fax gateways at one time were a popular application for email.
by excalibur on 2/13/25, 4:23 PM
> The most recent generation of LLMs are already trained on all the code ever written.
This can't possibly be true. But if it were it would be highly illegal.
by Workaccount2 on 2/13/25, 4:28 PM
AI will not replace software engineers.
But it will most likely lower their pay into "normal" engineering compensation territory.
by pjc50 on 2/13/25, 4:15 PM
Obvious point: we're the most expensive kind of non-finance individual-contributor employee.
Equally obvious: nobody is going to replace the most expensive kind of employee, the CEO.
Less obvious point: software engineers sometimes say no. LLMs don't. They'll always give you something, even if it doesn't work or has security holes. The idea of shipping worse products at higher speed is incredibly tempting to sales types.
If you think the app store is bad now, wait until you see what level of AI sloppification is possible when anyone can turn out hundreds of clones of any popular apps.
by dakna on 2/13/25, 6:02 PM
> The current AI hype might not actually pose a real threat to engineers but the fact that most of our colleagues do not understand the value that we bring is a serious problem that we need to address.
> We need to start meeting our colleagues where they are and explain what we do in ways that make sense to them. The goal is not to turn them into engineers but to help them get a high level understanding of what it takes to build a software product.
See, why stop at software engineers? Because coding is text based? There is a whole class of IT middle managers in non-tech companies making good money due to "responsibility" and "team supervision". How about they start explaining the value that they bring?
If it is not more than the usual
- check a list of incoming jobs to be done submitted by other departments
- assign the jobs to be done to someone on their team, mostly the person who worked in the same area before
- ask every person (daily/weekly) for status updates and an estimated completion date for the jobs assigned
- ask if the job was done sufficiently and can be reported as completed
- report the weekly/monthly completion rate and hours spent to their supervisor.
- every now and then review contractor bids for open RFPs
then the current state of LLMs can do this just fine.
Is there a good reason not to eliminate most of the little kingdoms in a large org and instead invest the money saved into more AI supervision, better QA and a lot more marketing?
by RGamma on 2/13/25, 7:09 PM
Economically, everbody is friction from someone else's perspective.
by padseeker on 2/13/25, 4:07 PM
we are expensive to employ
by ok123456 on 2/13/25, 5:59 PM
They hate us and despise the fact they're forced to compensate us for our education and experience.
Left to their own devices, software engineering would be just as abusive and exploitative as truck driving or automotive repair. They've already made great strides in this direction in terms of how people are hired (asking ACM/"Leet" code questions) and managed ("agile" nonsense).
by MattPalmer1086 on 2/13/25, 8:36 PM
Because Devs are expensive and incomprehensible to most people.
by ratherbefuddled on 2/13/25, 4:42 PM
Capitalism is always looking for ways to make complex, expensive work simpler and cheaper. Why wouldn't it?
The thing is it doesn't really matter what tools you use. The problems are complex and they don't become simpler just because you use an LLM. We will gain a bit of efficiency and then spend that gain on whatever new problems LLMs throw up plus the constant stream of new problems the world generates.
Software engineers are not getting replaced by LLMs any more than they are by UML, visual programming tools, RPA, MDD, code generators or any of the other fads that have come and gone over the years.
by ajkjk on 2/13/25, 4:16 PM
I mean.. they're a big cost center that operates slowly and takes a lot of effort to keep functioning. Not to mention, you often need the engineers more than you, given how much time it takes them to ramp up, and how hard it is to find quality ones, so they get to demand high wages (often while not really doing that great of a job---looking at you, average college hire who's not aspiring to be any sort of leader or expert in their field). If you ran a company you'd want to replace them also.
(None of that has anything to do with whether it's just for the world to operate this way. Personally I'd like to see all engineer wages go down and owner/shareholder returns go down and all that money go to lesser-paid roles or cheaper prices. But we lived in a version of capitalism that doesn't presently seem to present a way to do that...)
Personally I think programming will be 10x as efficient in the not-so-distant future (25 years maybe), and that everyone vaguely understands this: that what we're doing today is in some sense a waste of effort. Similar to building a road or railroad with hundreds of manual laborers instead of a few big machines.
by vagab0nd on 2/13/25, 4:12 PM
This is either delusional, or trying to sell a course.
That aside, it's interesting that software engineering will probably be among the first to be destroyed by ASI. This is simply because it's easy to do reinforcement learning on.
by sexyman48 on 2/13/25, 4:58 PM
Because people suck? Everyone trying to replace everyone.
by palakkadan on 2/13/25, 6:58 PM
What's with this assumption that software engineers are some special breed of worker immune to capitalism?
by micromacrofoot on 2/13/25, 4:23 PM
because employees produce the most overhead, software engineers more than most non-execs
we're living in times where enshittification is a reliable strategy to make money and the people doing it don't care about long-term outcomes as long as they can cash out before they happen
this is almost the entire american business landscape today
by codingwagie on 2/13/25, 4:09 PM
its completely over for this field. anyone that doesnt think so has their head in the sand, we are 18 months out from the value proposition of a 50-85th percentile software engineer dropping to the floor
by skirge on 2/13/25, 4:23 PM
Envy. Digital nomads, compradors of capitalism should die.
by SavageNoble on 2/13/25, 4:09 PM
Have you met any software engineers?