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The demise of software engineers due to AI is greatly exaggerated (TLP 2025w6)

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There is a huge gap between the expectations senior manages have for AI replacing software engineers, and the reality on the ground.

Notes:

  • At a recent leadership workshop I attended for several days, the c-suite were excited about AI reducing our need to hire expensive software engineers.
  • Our CTO was mentioning the fact that Salesforce was not planning to hire any engineers in 2025, and could we do the same? Ref: https://www.salesforceben.com/salesforce-will-hire-no-more-software-engineers-in-2025-says-marc-benioff/
  • Thankfully my poker face prevented me from rolling my eyes, and instead I entertained it enough to offer to gather some feedback from my team.
  • Several of the senior engineers in my team have already been using Github Copilot for several months. I know this because I approved the licenses.
  • So, I surveyed them for feedback as this is what they told me:
    1. They are mainly using Copilot via extensions to their IDEs like VS Code and IntelliJ.
    2. Most felt that the code suggestion feature named Copilot Next Edit Suggestions, or Copilot NES, was not good enough yet. They did not trust the results.
    3. The code auto-completion feature however IS useful, and is definitely increasing their productivity.
    4. Put simply, they are using AI for auto-completion of small blocks of code, but not for suggesting larger blocks of code.
    5. Now, according to the hype that is reaching the c-suite via the media, AI is ready for full feature development.
    6. When I think about what my senior engineers do each day, it is not just writing code: they also manage stakeholders, debug bugs, read logs, do design work, write tests, provide estimates, escalate blockers, and general juggle dozens of tasks and priorities per day.
    7. Perhaps in the future an AI can handle all of that, but not right now.
    8. Software engineers are not just chat bots that generate code, so it is ridiculous to think they can be replaced by that.
    9. I think at best we can think about an AI as being a Junior Engineer, but not a Senior and not even remotely close to a Staff or Principal.
    10. In 2025, I am still hiring.
    11. In truth however, I believe many non-technology companies resent spending any money on software engineering, and are therefore excited with reducing the expensive overhead that we represent to their bottom line.
    12. Working on this week:
      • New blog: "We are all just shouting at avatars" - https://techleader.pro/a/678-We-are-all-just-shouting-at-avatars
      • Media this week:
        • Severance season 2 - is this the new Lost? I am out.

          • Notes and subscription links are here: https://techleader.pro/a/679-The-demise-of-software-engineers-due-to-AI-is-greatly-exaggerated-(TLP-2025w6)

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          Tech Leader ProBy John Collins