👨‍💻 AI gives devs more leverage

From my own experience using AI, building with it, and hiring engineers, I honestly think there's never been a better time to get into this field.

I've seen some stats floating around about CS grads struggling to find jobs more than ever. Maybe they're true, but if they are, it probably has more to do with the broader job market than AI itself.

There's still so much to build right now, and the people who benefit from AI the most are the ones who can code and understand the tech.

I think the job of the engineer is getting more leverage with AI, not less.

So far, most of the progress in AI has improved developer workflows, with devs as the main customers. I don’t see that trend slowing down anytime soon.

In fact, I think both the demand for and supply of engineers will grow massively in the next few years.

Even when tooling gets good enough to build a basic website (say, for a local hair salon) end-to-end, the salon owner still won’t do it themselves. Why? It’s not their expertise. And even with better tools, it’ll still take time, decisions, and care. Obviously some might do it themselves, but most won't.

And if we ever get to the point where AI agents can act across systems with near-perfect memory and reasoning, someone will still need to manage them. To do that well, you’ll need to understand software engineering yourself.

So in almost every likely scenario, engineers are going to thrive in the next decade.

The only real exception is a generally intelligent AI that behaves like a human being, fully autonomous, accountable, and capable of end-to-end ownership. If we get there, the concept of a "job" itself starts to shift in fundamental ways. At that point, worrying specifically about developer jobs becomes kind of moot.