I've been through a dry spell or two. The early 90's was a pretty tough time for someone new to the industry. The dot com bust also led to belt tightening in the industry. There has always been an ebb and flow in demand, but those who eat and breath software sailed through those seas.
This time it's fundamentally different. Life has been pretty good for software developers over the last 40 years, but life does not owe software developers anything, and perhaps we are nearing the end of the gravy train.
Up until 1900 the horse was the primary mode of transportation. In a space of about ten years the car replaced horses in volume. Horses were no longer required. Sure, you can still find them today, in horse racing or on tourist ventures perhaps. But there is no law of nature which says "there will always be new jobs for horses".
And so it is I fear with programmers. Artificial Intelligence has arrived, runs at very low cost compared to humans, and can already perform much of the intellectual work of software developers. This is not to say it can replace developers, at least not yet, but the trend is unmistakable.
The answer we are told is to embrace AI, to become Data Engineers, Data Scientists, and adopt all the shiny new AI technologies. To this call there have been broadly two camps in software development. The first camp prides itself on its intellect, and decries the use of LLMs. For these developers using AI is an admission of incompetence. Or maybe they believe a machine will never be able to replace them.
The second camp is full on embracing AI. In some sense I am in that camp, as I have always been fascinated by AI and it has been a dream to work in that field. That said there is a more pragmatic reason; that state of the art AI really is a force multiplier. It enables me to accomplish far more than without it. From AI fans you may hear exhortations to learn about AI to remain relevant in the coming revolution.
The reality however is that the pie itself will shrink. We have already seen companies laying off software developers, more in the anticipation of the success of AI to replace them than there being any compelling reason. At least so far.
Today's LLMs are good. Five years ago the LLMs we see today would be considered science fiction. But despite the successes of LLMs they are not yet capable of replacing humans entirely. You still need humans in the loop. They can be a force multiplier for a software developer, allowing them to be far more productive than otherwise. But now there are also 'vibe coding' platforms where people with no development skills can develop software.
The AI revolution is not part of a cycle. There is a fundamental change occurring involving machine intelligence. In my naivety I initially believed that the technologists like myself would be the last to feel the pain of being replaced, but in fact it seems we are one of the first along with artists, writers and musicians.
'Learn to code' they said.
Even though AI won't replace developers outright initially, they will reduce the number needed. There will be an ever decreasing number of developers required. This will impact the salaries as the supply of developers will outstrip demand for them.
None of this requires anything near as grand as some magical AGI or even super intelligence. Gradual improvement is all that is needed. It will be like musical chairs for software developers, with a ever decreasing number of chairs. To get a chair the demands in terms of skills and experience will only increase. This in itself will cut off the supply of younger less experienced developers.
What is a software developer to do? Should we do what is needed to find a chair? Or are we horses in the age of cars?
My advice is this: learn to be a hairdresser. Even with robots coming, letting sharp objects near our heads is perhaps something humans won't trust bots with. This may be all in jest, as an aging chubby white dude I'm not exactly the typical demographic for hairdresser myself. I guess more seriously we should be looking at options that involve less sitting at a desk moving a mouse.
Or do we lobby to ban AI to protect the poor software developers?
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