It seems like uncertain times for software developers, with AI writing apps and code so fast, no human can possibly keep up.

But is that really true? Are we, as programmers, going the way of the dodo, or as would be more apt, the way of the goto?

Have we finally compiled our last human-written line of code? Did we refactor our last variable?

Not even close. But we need to understand what the future might look like.

Nothing Is New

Your first thought might be that AI can now generate infinite code so why would us developers be needed at all?

The first argument I’m going to make is that this has been the case for a couple of decades already. With the advent of public Github repositories and StackOverflow, it’s been a long time since code is inaccessible.

Managers and non-techies now have a way to utilize what we as developers have been utilizing for a long time, namely the combined knowledge of thousands or millions of other developers.

Knowing which frameworks and plugins and code snippets to glue together is still the domain of human knowledge.

So in a way, there’s nothing new here. You don’t really get paid to copy stuff from StackOverflow or importing an existing JavaScript framework.

React, Entity Framework, Django… Whatever it is that you use, the vast majority of your code production is simply “Hey, IDE, use this framework please”

But what about when AI knows which parts to glue together too?

Well, how often has that been the part that’s really taken your time as a developer? The code that bridges Entity Framework into my app is perhaps 5 lines of code, plus a line for each entity. It’s hardly been a massive drain on my time at least.

No, the challenge to software development is not about writing code. If the writing of code is your biggest challenge, then I am sorry, that value will drop to near zero.

Instead, think about it like this…

Outsource Everything!

Your boss or company has already had the opportunity to have someone cheap write code. It’s called outsourcing. It’s being done all the time!

And yet, prices of developers and indeed the need for developers have only been going up.

Creating a solution is about far more than code production. That part has been cheap and accessible for decades.

And even if every written code line is handled by someone cheaper, whether that is someone in a sweatshop in Bangladesh or an AI, someone needs to maintain that code. To monitor, secure, track, patch, and support it.

The truth is that we have already experienced what cheap code looks like. You are living it now and if you have been around, you have been living that life for many years.

And just think about it… How often does your boss actually describe what they need? Do they understand what’s feasible, what’s good user experience, what impacts performance, how to build a flexible solution that can scale?

The answer is likely no. That’s why you have spent hours or days or weeks planning software development. It’s why you bring years of experience in how your company’s codebase works, what caveats exist, what business rules your boss forgot.

And even if your boss knows perfectly how to describe and manage a software project, there’s another reality which will likely change, and that is who actually gets to build software.

Experts Are Now Developers

One shift that I see in the potential future is who gets to request software.

Previously, hiring you to build a cookie cost calculator would be cost prohibitive. That means that if I need a cookie cost calculator, I’m not going to get one until someone builds a solution and sells it to a lot of customers.

That solution is likely not going to be perfect for me. I might need different colors or larger buttons or bigger numbers, or everything in Spanish…

Now, I can get that, as an expert in what I need. I can now quicker and easier talk with ChatGPT and get exactly the solution I need for exactly my situation.

This is huge news for subject matter experts that right now have now realistic chance of getting custom software.

But this is also huge news for you.

Because if you haven’t been paying attention, there are now more software developers in the world than ever before. This, despite the fact that producing code has become cheaper for almost 30 years.

That is because with more code and better accessibility, there is a bigger demand for programmers and software developers. Things like building the tools like Visual Studio Code or Lovable or Cursor are obvious, but also those who build React and Vue and Tailwind… Every one of those frameworks were build by developers and they will need to be built by developers, and maintained, monitored, updated, patched, extended…

And your buddy down the road who can now create his own beer tracking app instead of begging you to invest your time and money? Well, he’s going to produce a lot more code, meaning there will be a lot more of those tasks that are not related to the actual writing.

Conclusion

Writing code is cheap. It always has been, at least for the 40 years or so I have done it. It gets a bit cheaper now but the scale of the problems that everyone will have will just increase. That creates massive opportunities for developers.

As such, you won’t be starving in the streets even if AI writes every single line of code.

You will be fine. You might need to learn some new things but you didn’t know how to code before you begun either, so you know you can handle that.

So, relax, utilize AI where it makes sense and just be a bit patient for your boss to run themselves into their first endless loop that takes down the server center for the now much higher paid work to start up again.

Meanwhile, code hard!

You got this!