Requires at least 3 articles from traditionally reputable news organizations reporting that some U.S. software engineers have lost income, job security, or hiring velocity as a result of AI-based automation.
I won't be proactively searching for such articles - I will need to come across them organically or they can be posted in the comments / sent to me via Twitter message or other DM.
1,000People are also trading
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-ai-tools-are-reshaping-the-coding-workforce-6ad24c86
“Leaner development teams and a higher bar for hiring new roles are some of the changes coming as companies turn to generative AI coding tools”
“The unemployment rate in the information technology sector rose from 3.9% in December to 5.7% in January, well above the month’s overall jobless rate of 4%, according to a report from consulting firm Janco Associates based on data from the U.S. Department of Labor. Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco, attributes part of the shift to the growing use of AI.“
“[W]hen hiring developers, companies say they can be more tempered and selective than several years ago”
@HenriThunberg yeah I think it does. LMK if anyone disagrees.
Also this would probably qualify
https://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-software-engineers-coders-bad-market-ai-2025-3
@OscarMadden This is about IT, not software engineers.
The from the article (itself quoting someone else):
“Jobs are being eliminated within the IT function which are routine and mundane, such as reporting, clerical administration,” Janulaitis said. “As they start looking at AI, they’re also looking at reducing the number of programmers, systems designers, hoping that AI is going to be able to provide them some value and have a good rate of return.”
@Shai The article isn’t exclusively about software engineers, but that doesn’t mean it’s “not about software engineers“. E.g. “New Indeed job postings in software development, for instance, declined 8.5% in January from a year earlier”
i put the title question at 30% because i think increased productivity will increase the value of developers. but, i think that the market may resolve the other way anyway due to media portrayal.
on reflection, should resolve yes almost no matter what due to ai fear.
@JimHays Note that Klarna is Swedish, so this would not count towards one of the three articles
@Shai I think you're wrong, I've successfully used gpt-3.5 even to explain a piece of code or create non trivial code. I don't think the limitation is that it's understanding is shallow, I think the limitation is that it doesn't have access to all the files in your project, or the internet or the errors in your terminal. All of these have been announced (through chatgpt plug-ins and copilot chat), so I expect a massive increase in abilities.
@Shai Although I think AI can do more than you are suggesting, I also think that the requirements are lower than you’re implying: It just takes a few managers to decide that lowering their coding standards are worth saving an entire engineer’s salary as the economy slows.
Twitter straight up cut a ton of people. Its reliability has definitely suffered a bit, but I suspect plenty of cash-flow focused leaders are thinking of it as a successful case study if they can gesture towards greater efficiency while doing the same.