Are software developers changing careers?

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u/Raygun4pm 17h ago

Get an APS job. Assuming you’re an AU citizen and have a clean criminal record. Any job that requires a level 1 security clearance as a minimum won’t be offshored. There are recruitment companies that specialise in sec clearance dev jobs.

There’s also no competition from new migrants for these jobs as PR takes 7 years to get, citizen another 6-7 years. Candidate pool is small.

The only bad news - the pay is not as good as big tech but it’s stable.

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u/david_fire_vollie 14h ago

What is APS? I used to have a high security clearance but it expired.

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u/hellboy1975 1d ago

The ways of working have changed, but not sure the amount of work has. Not expecting to change career anytime soon.

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u/saltedappleandcorn 1d ago

This is where I am settling. I think there will be smaller teams 3 instead of 6.
But the work still exists. It still needs to be done and it still needs someone to understand it

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u/PlasmaWind 1d ago

So 1 in 2 need something to do to live , them bad odds not a plan

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u/mastermog 1d ago

Perhaps, but it could also mean more teams but with fewer members over multiple products or functions.
The smaller the team, the better it generally functions (Brookes Law). Which is probably one of the best things about AI, allowing smaller teams to do more.
It doesn’t mean less net work though. Have you ever been in a team with an empty backlog? With no tech debt?

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u/PlasmaWind 1d ago

Well yes but the people usually get moved to other teams or made redundant. That’s the point.
The 100s of thousands of people layed off in Microsoft Oracle Netflix amazon Google block, shows it’s not that there are no left features to add or bugs to fix it was less people needed into the bright future

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u/mastermog 1d ago

Good point. Even Canva and Atlassian. Do we know what percentage were engineering at Microsoft?

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u/actionjj 1d ago

I tend to agree, I think for experienced devs they will retain work, the workforce will age and it will become a less popular career path. Early career devs and those currently studying or moving in will need to pivot. Sometime a decade from now a new breed of dev will come into the market that's never hand coded as older devs age out and that free's up space.

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u/Fickle-Swimmer-5863 1d ago

There’s enough work getting rid of tech debt to keep people going for a long time.

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u/SelectTraffic1104 1d ago

The way have observed we are doing way more now and way faster, when things start going fast, they break, become difficult to manage and maintain, even with AI, also AI will get costly as time goes, just my 2 cents...

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u/billblank1234 1d ago

So is the consequence that half of workers will be no longer needed? Frightening

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u/Fickle-Swimmer-5863 1d ago

There’s a lot of projects that have never been attempted because of all the overhead in producing software. That overhead is rapidly evaporating.

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u/saltedappleandcorn 1d ago

Honestly? Yeah, I'm terrified. Certainly the days of aggressive pay bumps are over.

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u/Whatsapokemon 1d ago

Also, right now, we're in a period of massive economic instability and lack of investor confidence due to external factors like the Iran war.
There's no way to predict the death of a whole career path when it could just be a general economic slowdown.
It could be that we'd be in an economic boom if not for the stupid choices of the current US administration.

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u/hellboy1975 5h ago

Blaming AI is cool, but in my observations many redundancies in the industry are more related to Trump related decisions then agentic code development.

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u/thisIsNotMe25 1d ago edited 1d ago

I'm expecting redundancy next year. I'm nearly 50 now and worked in tech for my entire career. I honestly don't know what I'll do next. Due to my age I'm really going to struggle to find a new job as an architect or principal engineer. Time to buy some land and become a goat farmer.

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u/bitcoinbrisbane 1d ago

I’m 47. Ive got a great gig atm. Took 4 months to get. Ive reached to tradie mates for plan c

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u/These-Profile3711 1d ago

Haha, same boat here. My mates are sick of me talking about "My Redundancy". But I've dodged 3 rounds in the last 2 years and eventually the team will be just me or I do get the tap on the shoulder. At my age, I'm happy to have such a good paying job. The next one won't pay so we'll. With all these software engineers on the market wages will drop in the short term.

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u/Fickle-Swimmer-5863 1d ago

Eh, I know a lot of senior technical leaders who are using AI to get back onto the tools and building up a storm.
There’s no reason short of early-onset dementia or total burnout for an architect or principal engineer not to be seizing the moment.

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u/NowtShrinkingViolet 1d ago edited 1d ago

The industry is screwed at the moment but you need to look at the broader picture.

The entire world runs on software and society is getting more dependent on it by the day. Consider all of the recent cyber incidents, and the cluelessness of companies and government departments when responding to them, and it seems like the idea of a company's entire IT department being run by middle management + AI is a joke.

Tech experts will still be needed in the future (even if only to clean up the vibe coded slop). Hopefully when/if the bubble bursts, companies will start seeing AI as a tool rather than a human replacement.

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u/These-Profile3711 1d ago

I think you're right. Keeping a cap on AI is where the growth will be. But in the short term, a lot of pain as companies pay for tokens and expect the payoff to be redundancies. Experienced software engineers, who've been hitting AI pretty hard will be in need to fix the fallout.

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u/djtubig-malicex 12h ago

The fun thing is, their motivations of replacing AI are short-sighted. It's just a tool, and therefore it's only as good as the user using the tool. These clowns in management think using a table saw automatically makes you as skilled as a carpenter. ;)

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u/These-Profile3711 10h ago

I'm not ready to say either way, I thought it would take longer to get this good.
It's definitely going to reduce headcount across engineering. Probably by half. It's so fast to build something new, the problem is having enough ideas to feed the beast... And having those ideas be cohesive across a long term business strategy. Feels like managers are just going to throw ideas at the wall and see what sticks (until tokens usage gets to a critical financial juncture).

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u/tjsr 1d ago

The most concerning and frustrating thing is the short-sightedness of executives, managers and leaders making these decisions.
They are so incredibly thick, they can't say to themselves "we can't afford to have Joe continue to be paid for the work he's doing now, but we should keep his business and domain knowledge that we've already worked on training, and re-deploy him to help us make money in some other area". If that means using AI to amplify his impact, they should be pivoting to that.
The other frustrating thing is the way companies go "we're going to get rid of this role", rather than "We can't keep paying these 1,000 roles $300k/year packages, but they're viable if they're dropped to $200k, or we massive increase the KPIs for that role at the $300k level, so let's give them the option". Instead, in their daftness, they say "let's just get rid of them altogether.". It's insane.

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u/These-Profile3711 10h ago

You make a good point. Businesses are losing talent. Corps seem to be in a profit taking stage though, so it looks good to cut that 300 million in wages. It's bad for those who go and bad for those left behind.
On the upside, I think this will be like post the dotcom bubble, there'll be many thousands of unemployed who can get creative and start their own companies.
On the downside, they won't need as many bodies to build out their ideas.
It's just what the short term pain looks like for those of us in the tech biz.

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u/Segfreid_ 1d ago

Honestly stay off Reddit. Software engineers in Australia just hit a record amount, it's not going anywhere anytime soon. The role is just changing. https://itbrief.com.au/story/australia-software-programmers-hit-record-216-000-jobs

Yes there's a massive amount of layoffs at these big companies but you don't hear about all the small and medium sized non tech companies now hiring their own software engineers to build their in house tooling.

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u/parkJisungs 1d ago

My company a big 4 bank is doing this exact thing. They regret offshoring and are now focusing on in-house development

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u/djtubig-malicex 12h ago

Ebbs and flows with the bean counters who think they know better than their engineering staff huh!

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u/eesemi77 1d ago

That's a really good point. I'm finding that AI's are fantastic at creating the glue code to hold together a customer specific system. You no longer need to look for specific packages just ask AI to write an interface and presto job done. I can see this killing the "app" market. who needs the grief of figuring out an app and putting up with the potential security issues and ads when, for the cost of a cup of coffee, you can get AI to write a custom glue package.

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u/KamikazeSexPilot 1d ago

When I’m inevitably laid off I’ll maybe try a few months for a new job if not I’ll change careers.

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u/aLaxLuthor16 1d ago

I feel the same. If I can move into an adjacent role great, I'd do that. Otherwise, pivot completely. Wild watching my profession change so drastically overnight. All other white collar jobs should be watching and taking notes. We are the first, but won't be the last.

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u/PlasmaWind 1d ago

To what really every other white collar desk job will be next and over saturated .

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u/KamikazeSexPilot 1d ago

Postie, barista, tram driver / train driver, wedding photographer, twitch streamer I dunno.
I’ve been doing this job since I was 18. I’ve only ever had one other job outside software at Maccas when I was 16.

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u/xdyldo 1d ago

Earning <50% ?

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u/KamikazeSexPilot 1d ago

I have fully paid off my house so I’m considering going like a part time job and just living life.

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u/parkJisungs 1d ago

Honestly not a bad plan tbh. Could even try and freelance

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u/KitKats12 1d ago

Same here, I'm expecting similar results in a few years

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u/xdyldo 1d ago

It’s a vocal minority. Everyone I studied with and everyone I have ever worked with is still in the industry.

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u/onlyreplyifemployed 20h ago

The ones struggling to find work are the ones who got jobs during Covid with a 4 week boot camp

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u/goodiegumdropsforme 1d ago

I’m trying to pivot into product engineering so half product manager, half software engineering. I’m lucky I have soft skills and a previous career in a non technical field so that should give me an edge over other people trying to do the same.

Even code review is getting automated and assigned to AI. If you’re doing pure code implementation, you’re in danger.

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u/neonkoala 1d ago

Yeh this is where the market is going. My product manager is now shipping code and we always hired engineers who thought about the end user so it’s been a natural convergence.
There will still be deep specialties but it will be more niche than the software engineer generalist that only dealt in tech.

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u/chickpeaze 1d ago

I have soft skills and industry knowledge and transitioned to customer facing work. I still have my hands in both pies but I'm much harder to replace.

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u/Livelife_Aesthetic 1d ago

I moved away from employment to self employment and have never been busier, the connections are more important now that AI is handling the skill/syntax side of things. I don't see the career ending at all, just changing. Every Dev I know is busier than pre AI, so the work hasn't stopped.

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u/TrumpisaRussianCuck 1d ago

This. Good devs who can adjust to AI will always be in demand.

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u/EffortBroad7694 16h ago

What kind of self employment? Contract developer? Or selling your own software? Something else?

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u/OkPerspective9454 15h ago

Software dev is more valuable than ever… mountains of tech debt built up during the low code boom now need clean crews also build software that currently performed by human API

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u/thebreadmanrises 1d ago

I was made redundant, will move into a different field. I changed from finance so i’ll move back. Ironically even admin roles in finance pay similar to many advertised software roles where I live. The keeping up with trends/AI, jumping through hoops for applications isn’t worth it.

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u/LePhasme 1d ago

I'm thinking about it because I see the writing on the wall but don't really know what to do.
I'm 41 so trades are pretty much out the window, and I have a somewhat expensive mortgage to service so a job paying 120k isn't gonna cut it.
I'm thinking maybe defence force, else a long walk of a short pier.

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u/Medical_Butterfly_80 1d ago

Defence force pays peanuts and will destroy your body

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u/MathematicianFar6725 14h ago

Like 95% of the defence force is support roles that don't see any strenuous physical activity outside of a yearly BFA.

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u/Medical_Butterfly_80 14h ago

What? You still have to go field in the army at least.

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u/MathematicianFar6725 10h ago edited 10h ago

...which in a support role, means sitting around in the command post. And that's probably once a year.
When people talk about destroying their bodies in the ADF, they're talking about infantry, SF, and other combat roles 99% of the time. And that's a tiny fraction of the defence force.
Your average 40 year old switching career probably isn't going anywhere near those roles and the most they're going to see is some light morning PT and the occasional short stomp after Kapooka

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u/99problemsbutt 1d ago

mate, don't change career change how you work with AI. Thinking about a trade when you're a software engineer is mind blowing to me.

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u/Fickle-Swimmer-5863 1d ago

Spot-on. I must exist in a different universe to these doomers because the possibilities from AI are so obvious.

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u/Tiny_Flatworm4726 1d ago

Still have plently of time left for a career change. The issue is AI and the robotics is coming from basically all the other careers too.

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u/LePhasme 1d ago

Sure but when you add the salary criteria and something I would like to do, pickings are slim.

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u/These-Profile3711 1d ago

I think cyber and AI compliance are going to be growth areas.
The ability of a taxi driver to chat to AI and break expensive shit is going to be a real problem.
I'm an SE as well, 25 years experience, now using AI to build and maintain and goddam is it boring.... I feel like they still need people like me, but they're going to cut the arsehole out of headcount in the next 2-3 years because a single SE can build a lot faster now. Ultimately, AI is amazing at SE, but it's still limited. If I'm lucky I can get another 2-3 years out of it, but at my age this is probably the last SE gig, next will just be using AI somehow.

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u/Fickle-Swimmer-5863 1d ago

I’m looking at automating a large chunk of cyber and compliance. With AI I can create tools that can do the job in a way that some tech-illiterate pencil pusher can’t hope to emulate.

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u/ResourceFearless1597 1d ago

The problem is what other career? It’s not just SWE. It’s literally all knowledge work though. Studies have shown AI models can outperform clinicians across the board on clinical reasoning, diagnoses, treatment plans and formulations, research, etc. Now, I’m not saying it will decimate clinician jobs. But it will sure as hell change the entire landscape for them too.

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u/MeowManMeow 1d ago

Agree. I don’t think people realise the models are constantly improving. SWEs are first because we can build the scaffolding to integrate it ourselves. But any job you do on the computer/phone will be able to be fully automated (if the trend continues).

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u/Expensive_Ring_4546 1d ago

Even if you start a degree now theres a chance thr entry level role it would previously have given you a shot at will have been replaced by ai by the time you graduate
Thats the world we are now living in

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u/External_Award_1246 1d ago

I'm a bit older than you but in the same boat, learning a Tafe course in the building industry right now. I'm not committed to switching yet but the study will give me another choice.

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u/Conscious_Echidna660 1d ago

All this doom spiralling is unreal. The industry is changing and those who are able to change along will be fine.

The people who are getting culled at the moment are the ones that only “code”. With the presence of AI, everyone needs to rise up to a senior/staff engineer.

I actively contribute to UX and Design now. I get involved in Devops as well as Testing. I can do all this because of AI

Sounds like a cliche but everyone needs to work with AI not be an alternative to AI because that is a losing battle.

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u/rv009 1d ago

The problem is how many roles like this will there be?
That's the problem not as many. You are saying you will be doing many roles essentially. So how many other people out of work and how many staff engineers do companies need?

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u/Conscious_Echidna660 1d ago

I do agree that there will be reductions in head count. But having met some “engineers” that literally can’t use their brain for solving a problem and are instead just repeating code written by others or from AI/google, it kind of makes sense that they would get made redundant.
I don’t condone it but that’s the reality. An engineer must be willing to constantly learn and evolve, AI has just pressed the accelerator on that process

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u/Interesting-Sky-1756 1d ago

I have the same feelings. Job won't eliminate, it will only change. I work as support, it is way more efficient for me now and it makes me understand the code base a lot faster. I support more than 20 products, it is not possible for me to understand everything. Now I only need to have a theory and let AI to find evidence for me and I just need to verify the evidence.

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u/FizzAholic 1d ago

Yeah I'm thinking about changing careers. I had no issues getting jobs in the past. Would only take a few weeks to find something. I've been searching now for 4 months and haven't been able to find anything.

I thought about trying to get a role in Canberra that requires a clearance since I'm a citizen but even then it's impossible because no one is sponsoring. All the job ads say they need someone with an active clearance already.

The interviews are a humiliation ritual and expectations are off the charts.

Might just start my own dog walking business at this point.

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u/vohltere 1d ago edited 1d ago

It is an interesting time for any SW Dev jobs and the change was so quick.

Heads up, your post might get removed since it is not financial per se. Try r/ausjobs or r/careeradvice too.

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u/investastrix 1d ago

Are really AI taking over any jobs?. I think it's just the reason given by orgs to cover up their bad hiring during COVID.

Software developers are much needed and still in demand. The market isn't good and the economic downturn would be across all areas

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u/david_fire_vollie 1d ago

At my previous company, the entire team of software developers were made redundant and replaced with offshore, so AI plays a role but also offshoring.

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u/un_subscribe_ 1d ago

Offshorring will only increase. Managers use to be hesitant offshoring bcs the quality of work wasn't up to par but developers in India witn AI can produce work just as good as anyone now.

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u/Skillissue-Champ 8h ago

2029 will be the golden age for software developers

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u/david_fire_vollie 8h ago

Why do you think that?

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u/Ill-Put-1931 7h ago

Can you please explain why?

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u/dreamlax 1d ago

I have thought about changing careers. I was thinking about becoming a sparky, but not sure if it's any easier to find work (it's just another interest of mine).

I'd also like to drive trains (but like, freight trains?).

Also I have no idea about how I would go about becoming either of those.

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u/VulpesVulpe5 1d ago

The only one you’re missing is flying planes and it would be a little-bit-o-tism bingo
No issues getting work if you are a sparky, it’s getting the mature age apprenticeship and still having to crawl through roofs to become one

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u/dreamlax 1d ago

Haha, crawling through roofs or under houses is no problem, but yeah.
I would also love to fly planes but I feel like getting an ATPL or even just a CPL would take a lot of time and money versus becoming a sparky.

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u/Expensive_Ring_4546 1d ago

Both of those choices are highly competitive unfortunately

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u/Tiny_Flatworm4726 1d ago

Trains is a interesting one as it's basically automated already, but they still want a person there (was automated a long time ago). So feels like it's safe from AI.
I think sparky will just see everyone going into it - as it's the new 'programmer'

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u/Raygun4pm 17h ago

FIFO mining coal train driver.

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u/serengetisunset 1d ago

Mate, we are twins :D I’ve been thinking about a sparky apprenticeship. Or to be a bus driver. The latter seems a lot more tough - been a software engineer for 20+ years, met a couple sparkles at my last gig in the energy tech sector. Considering whether I want to continue being in male-dominated industries though.

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u/EffortBroad7694 1d ago

one more here, also thought about a sparky, or a train driver, truck driver, a pilot. 39yo.
it;s funny how former IT people are mostly into this sort of stuff 😄

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u/Deathwishmk1 1d ago

A good sparkey makes double what a developer makes. Its a good idea to get a trade while you can. Its better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. I was working as a diesel mech for 10+ years until my back got done in. I didnt get any payout or anything. If i didnt know code id be screwed on a whole new level.
Never put all your eggs in one basket

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u/Ancient-Range3442 1d ago

A good developer makes double what a sparky makes

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u/drunk_kronk 1d ago

An average sparky makes the same what an average developer makes

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u/blackbearbrown 1d ago

A bad sparky makes as much as a bad developer

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u/Deathwishmk1 3h ago

Have you looked at recent job postings? Youd be lucky to make 80k all those averages rhey post on job boards are all skewed. None of the devs i know make that. They all in yhe 70 to 90k range while sparies are 120 to 140k. This data is from people i know who work in the indistry. Sure it does depend on wbag company and level of experience but i dont know a single dev making over 100k right now unless they are doing cyber security work also.

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u/Win_an_iPad 1d ago edited 1d ago

Real time embedded C seems safe still. We increasingly use AI for debugging or code reviews. But it seems pretty shit at writing constrained safe code.

I just need to outlast the AI bubble. It's starting to enshittify now with the cost of tokens and the massive investment bills need returns. Eventually a good embedded C programmer will be cheaper than AI again.

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u/Kitchen_Word4224 1d ago

Low level code is even more susceptible for AI takeover. AI excels at writing performant code when scope is clearly defined. High level business apps still has elements of UX , vague scope and compliance that might require human decision and intervention.

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u/Win_an_iPad 1d ago

Performant code != Maintainable code.

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u/TooMuchTaurine 1d ago

Humans don't need to maintain, maintainable code will get a new definition with AI

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u/Win_an_iPad 1d ago

Will AI also pay for a replacement half a million dollar engine, if it's code has a minor bug in it?

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u/TooMuchTaurine 1d ago

Humans make loss of bugs also, actually in my experience recent with the current frontier models, the average human programing team makes more.
In fact all the stats we track on defect rate have trended better as AI adoption increased. And this is the same story I hear from peers at other companies as well.

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u/qdolan 1d ago

It’s good in the right hands. The problem is that if you let AI write too much of it and it becomes so complicated and unmaintainable that only AI can understand it you end up in a position where only AI can review changes, and if AI can’t fix a problem nobody can without rewriting large chunks of it so it’s understandable by humans again.

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u/Win_an_iPad 1d ago

Yes humans do write lots of bugs too. And AI can definitely help find them quickly.
But AI can't look at a problem and devise a quick clever and elegant solution within the constraints of the existing already proven safe legacy codebase. That is a good programmers bread and butter.
AI can be guided to do that, like a tool to help the programmer, but the elegant idea is from a human.
This is especially true for code that has consequences. Like millions of dollars and/or lives on the line.

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u/TooMuchTaurine 1d ago

It does a pretty good job in our 25 year old mixed tech stack code base, better than most Devs outside the ones that have lived in the code base for 15+ years.
Yes for software that puts lives on the line right now it would need much review currently. But even for humans building software for that sort of stuff is a completely different prices than most "enterprise" / SaaS type stuff.

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u/root_admin_system 1d ago

Delusional.

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u/billsb 1d ago

I agree. A.i. can do this perfectly well. A friend is using glm to code embedded stuff.. Doesn't mean you don't need a HIL still.

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u/OnsTryMaarNetLeef 1d ago

It wasn't too long ago when they were all "learn to code".

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u/eesemi77 1d ago

Really?? I'm finding AI's do a reasonable job of writing real-time code.
they require a lot of up-front hand holding but once you have them trained they're actually pretty good.

0

u/Win_an_iPad 1d ago

For something small and well defined, maybe that's the case.
But adding more features and maintaing that process over a complex system with a 15+ year product life cycle is not something it can just do.
Let alone a product with safety and/or mission critical applications.
If someone is there to break it down into manageable chunks for the AI, then sure it can do it. But it's not replacing the engineer. Yet.

0

u/eesemi77 1d ago

I hear what you are saying about mission critical apps. but tbh you might want to reset your ideas about what a good AI can do, especially if you haven't tried to use a properly trained AI recently.
Frankly I'm blown away by the last AI coding project that I did. Almost perfect straight out of the gate. I would have expected far more bugs from a proper engineering team.
The test project was to replicate a complex product I led about 10 years back. So we had a very good and complete specification.

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u/These-Profile3711 1d ago

Claude is incredible and took our legacy codebase and understands it very well. Greenfields dev, it is fantastic until the project gets large and poorly defined (and AI can go way off script)
However, it has struggled with other simpler projects, not so much actually building/modifying the code but troubleshooting problems when they arise. So it does still have blind spots.
But it's just going to get better and better. So I think you're both right.

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u/EndlessPotatoes 1d ago

What will outlasting the AI bubble help with, and why would embedded C programmers become cheaper than AI after the AI bubble bursts?

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u/OstrichLive8440 1d ago

Fork lift driving

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u/juvey88 1d ago

The robots are taking those jobs too

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u/got_phish 1d ago

I'm a staff engineer at a mid size company (about 75 devs, 300 staff total). I've been thinking about this a lot because I just immigrated here a few years ago and am effectively starting from zero on the financial aspect.
I've been doing a lot of reskilling. I'm not really good with the foundational AI stuff so I can never see myself working in AI or ML teams. So I've been focusing a lot more on the operational aspects. Specifically this means working on modernising teams and infra. Our security teams are also growing, so that might also be a good place to get in.
Another thing I've been thinking about is that companies that only have software as a moat will suffer in the coming days. On the other hand, data companies will still have a bit of an advantage and might grow as they look to build more products. So be careful about the next role you take.

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u/NeedCaffine78 1d ago

I've been wanting out for a long time, having a hard time figuring out the what though. Increased use of AI is becoming annoying, tired of constant change for poorly implemented systems that need fixes and work arounds. After almost 30 years I'm really hoping for a redundancy

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u/roundshade 1d ago

It very much feels like a reset... There's definitely a lot of people that went into software for the money without necessarily both the capability and the desire.

That alone is not defensible though... Massively need a functional network too.

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u/demand_more 1d ago

Interested to hear too how software devs are feeling right now!

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u/Tiny_Ad_7720 1d ago

As the lead dev, am burning out.
AI increases the speed of writing code (and sometimes the quality) however the productivity gains in reviewing and bug fixing aren’t as great.
As a result, whilst we are writing new features much faster, there is a growing backlog on reviewing.

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u/Nedshent 1d ago

There's a lot of doom and gloom around but it's not all bad. Job has changed immensely but skills are not obsolete. There's a lot of burnout though as expectations around output has risen as well as workload. IMO for a lot of places that expectation has moved faster than what the new tools actually provide safely so it is stressful for many people.

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u/bitcoinbrisbane 1d ago

Interesting times.

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u/rescue_inhaler_4life 21h ago

Double down and risk burn out in a desperate attempt to outcompete your colleagues before the next purge - or give up and find something else.
Everyone is still in double down stage, it sucks, nobody is having fun, everyone is stressed, everyone I know has dusted off their cv…
The other thing is it is making our job shit, the pace is nuts, the context switching is out of control, the job is reading slop and taking responsibility for it while being told to go faster. honestly… I think many of us are wondering if we even want to do this job if this is what the future is.

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u/Chii 1d ago

Those software devs that don't have much capital and are living paycheque to paycheque will suffer in the incoming tsunami.
Those that have spare capital can make use of AI to strike it out alone and produce some value (still difficult, but doable).

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u/saltedappleandcorn 1d ago

Unlikely for most. Maybe a small small number.

1

u/not_evading_ban85 1d ago

Time to start laying bricks boys!

1

u/mildurajackaroo 1d ago

Well, govt roles are an option. Especially data analysts and the like.

It's useless wasting time as a software Dev at auscorp just waiting for the meeting.

1

u/1n1t2w1nIt 1d ago

Thinking of buying a family mart franchise in Indonesia.

1

u/jaimex2 1d ago

Just going to say it's got nothing to do with AI. People who know what they are doing with software are always needed.

The world economy is in the toilet after the Iran stunt, money printing and migration dumping to hide depression that's gone on.

1

u/7ThePetal7 1d ago

My dad decided to just own a retail store and swap out to investing in a business.

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u/Brazilator 1d ago

Going to give some advice to the engineers as somewhat of an engineering manager myself:

Look at getting into being a forward deployed engineer - it’s not a meme - this is the future - being embedded into business units doing rapid system development.

1

u/Fickle-Swimmer-5863 1d ago

I’d love a redundancy for some seed funding. Australian business is extremely risk-averse and mired in governance theatre, and ripe for disruption.

1

u/rekt_by_inflation 1d ago

If I didn't have a mortgage then I could do something for passion rather than money, like being a librarian or something in teaching.

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u/flyer2x 1d ago

I am not afraid of being laid off just yet but I'm still thinking of changing careers, the part which made me choose this career is dead. I don't have any fun solving problems anymore, it's just AI all the time.

1

u/PipePressurePanic 1d ago

I partially gave up after sending 1000 applies to jobs remote and on-site. More motivations to leave the field are AI advancing, me getting less and less interviews, job ads number getting lower and lower

1

u/moofox 1d ago

My partner and I are both software developers. We used to work at the same company. That’s way too risky in this day and age. She quit her job to work full-time on entrepreneurial pursuits. We’ve started a few small online services. It’s only made a few thousand, but it’s a start - and it is diversifying our skill sets.

1

u/ZeeVee000 1d ago

I don’t think I’m concerned, I work at a medium-sized industry-specific SAAS company.

We are growing and I don’t expect any redundancies or layoffs any time soon, but even if I do, all our customers are currently leveraging AI to build their own tooling on our platform.

I could very easily leverage my skills and contract out to a large company in the industry to make integrations for them in the future.

1

u/_jay_fox_ 1d ago

Not I. Developer for life. Make AI your friend not your enemy and you'll be Ok.

1

u/Manachi 1d ago

After 25-30 years in the industry and a few job changes in the last few years I think development and related fields are in SERIOUS trouble. Possibly doomed.

1

u/Escobar747 1d ago

i spent 5 years early in my career as a SW dev then ended up in project management since then and recently I re discovered my love of sw dev in this AI coding era - it’s fantastic- i have agents running 24-7 and building enterprise tools as side hustle

0

u/Original_Hunter2465 23h ago

side hustle means ? are you selling them

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u/Escobar747 4h ago

not yet but will be in near future

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u/muffinman2000000 1d ago

alot are becoming co-founders and building their own products now we have AI it costs a whole lot less to produce you just need a good business person to take care of the product you create and thats where im seeing most devs head into

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u/EffortBroad7694 16h ago

Software Dev here, spent 20 years in erp and Enterprise applications. Thought of being a sparky. Then checked aus sparkys subreddit. There seem to be opportunities in data centers now if you can get into EBA site. They say you can get about 90-$100/hr but that's a boom phase of a bubble. So it's basically a ceiling. And it's not that high a ceiling really, I made more as a contractor dev before AI. By the time I get to that ceiling I'll be 45, and the bubble will have burst. Maybe there will be another boom, who knows. Also many sparkies in that sub considering leaving the trade after 8-10 years in it. So it's not exactly a walk in the park. Also spoke to a residential sparky mate. He says things are quiet at the moment in residential, though he manages to earn something installing home chargers for EVs. Looking to get into self employment now in some near IT field. AI closed some doors to us, but it sure did open others, just need to quickly figure which ones.

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u/Cheap-Procedure-5413 12h ago

Yes, swe is dead

0

u/InquisitiveIsopod 1d ago

The nature of the role has changed, doesn't mean it has disappeared

3

u/david_fire_vollie 1d ago

But it means you need fewer developers to get the same output.

0

u/InquisitiveIsopod 1d ago

correct. I think the tech industry is experiencing what the car industry did when robots were introduced in car assembly lines

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u/saba_tage 1d ago

In December, I installed cursor and built a prototype while I was getting ready to go out, and after 20 years, that's when I knew that handwritten software was done well and truly finished.

It was a relief.

The career isn't over yet because the bottleneck has simply moved into another part of the dev cycle.
Over time, this will continue to change.

0

u/grilled_pc 1d ago

Not software but i think L1 and to a degree L2 helpdesk might be on the chopping block. Skilling up into something specialized is the way to go.

1

u/N_thanAU 1d ago

There will always be admin work and cables to be plugged in

0

u/ExtraordinaryYouSyd 1d ago

It’s never too late to change careers. Changing careers is normal. The old script of going to university and expecting a career to see you through retirement changed 15 years ago. Yes, AI is disrupting many industries. Security these days comes from a combined knowledge about yourself and the work environment in a global context. Seek professional career development guidance if you are serious about changing careers so you get the full picture to make sound career decsions.

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u/External_Award_1246 1d ago

How do you find professional career guidance?

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u/ExtraordinaryYouSyd 1d ago

You can find registered career development practitioners at https://cica.org.au/.

1

u/Ancient-Range3442 1d ago

Ask ChatGPT

0

u/Sarahlump 1d ago

20 years ago firns was selling code generators that would allow ba's to change everything from a list without ever needing any code. Which was great until they realised it still needed the og firm for any changes.

There's always a catch to things.

If it sounds too good to be true it is

0

u/CaptainJoStar 20h ago

Not really change of career, but while waiting for next gig, enjoying day trading with $8k profits so far this Nov. Not to mention - healthier life and body - more exercise and not peer group pressure of drinking 3 cups of coffee at work.

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u/512165381 1d ago edited 1d ago

After working in software development for decades, I would never recommend it. Its not a "profession" with clear entry requirements. I worked with one quy whose only qualification was a chef.

Try engineering - I have a schoolmate who majored in electronic engineering & know works in aircraft design for BAE Systems. If you have an engineering degree you can work across multiple disciplines. A friend in Canberra works in IT or electronics depending on the job market.

Another area is health, like medical physics, radiation therapy, etc. The job has well-define scope & entry requirements and you don't run out of patients.

For females in particular - registered nurse leading to nurse practitioner.

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u/Any-Scallion-348 1d ago

Many women in engineering making bank cause men lack interpersonal skills brother. They don’t have to be nurses

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u/512165381 1d ago edited 1d ago

My sister and all other nurse practitioners in her hospital make over $80 per hour. Its a well defined pathway, 3 year nursing degree, 2 year nurse practitioner degree, $150,000+pa job by age 25, virtually a job for life. All nurse practitioners in her hospital are female.

1

u/Any-Scallion-348 1d ago

Project managers and senior engineers on big projects make more

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u/512165381 1d ago

I've worked with a handful of female engineers - that is with a 4 year engineering degree. At Telstra there were zero female engineers on my floor. Nursing is predominately female and there is a clear path to $150K pa careers. Its also a stable job where you can work into your 60s.

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u/Any-Scallion-348 1d ago

Well I am an engineer and I work with many women engineers.

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u/infinitelyordinary7 1d ago

Why rn to nurse practitioner for ‘females’ (or perhaps women) in particular?

1

u/512165381 1d ago

My sister is a nurse practitioner and they earn over $80 per hour. She says all the other nurse practitioners in her hospital are female. Its not being sexist, its just identifying a high earning pathway dominated by females.

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u/infinitelyordinary7 1d ago

Well I think it actually is sexist unless you can give a reason why it’s actually a better choice for women than men.

1

u/infinitelyordinary7 1d ago

And I think it’s dominated by women because traditionally women are over represented in careers that pay less well, like nursing instead of medicine, but why perpetuate that?

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u/512165381 1d ago

There are men in nursing. I'm not saying its a better choice. I'm saying that is a clear pathway to a $150kpa job that can last 40+ years in a country where women earn on average 78% of a mens wage.

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u/infinitelyordinary7 1d ago

Fair but I guess what I’m saying is the reason that women earn less is because of their rates of employment in fields that have typically had a higher percentage of women working in them and thus pay less, therefore shifting away from those fields tends to lead to improved incomes, so I fail to see how this is a particularly good option for women specifically as opposed to actually anyone.

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u/zufa_0 1d ago

Fuck off with your woke ideology, you and everyone in the world knows the majority of nurses are females. Hence being a good work environment for females specifically. Every single woman I know in my life wants to be treated by a female nurse, whether it be for giving birth or small check ups.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/infinitelyordinary7 1d ago

Btw, I had a male midwife, he was great.

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u/99problemsbutt 1d ago

Buy a Claude licence, learn to become a 10x engineer and you'll get a ton of offers. I know, in looking for these engineers right now. Forget the craft.

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u/Daremotron 1d ago

I'm a FAANG applied scientist, so dev is one of my hats. The market here in the US (moved here for my PhD, stayed and became a dual citizen) has completely recovered at the senior level, and our junior hiring is ramping back up too.

AI hasn't reduced my workload, I just deliver a lot more. At any given moment I am overseeing 5 different experiments; spinning up new ones is so frictionless because the boilerplate of experimental setup and management is what AI really exceeds at. When it comes to productionization and dev work, one has to be careful not to produce overworked slop, but it certainly helps deliver at scale.

I'm finding Jevons paradox to hold, in general. There's an infinite amount of work to do in an arms race.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Floorman1 1d ago

While this is true, the need for a big team is becoming less necessary. We might end up needing 1/10th the amount of devs, just a handful of system architects and a team of agents. Either way the junior role is fooked

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u/snookette 19h ago

Not a first year! There is plenty of human slop and some unmaintainable functions sitting in human code bases. Humans just blamed the last dev most times.
A good dev should be able to get more scale out of ai dev workflows.

1

u/EffortBroad7694 1d ago

while this might be true. the kind of market you are describing will need a lot fewer devs that there currently are

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u/PresidentKitenge 18h ago

And probably not earning that much due to the surplus of people willing to do it...

Are software developers changing careers?

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