[Me & X] Software engineering jobs won't disappear
X : You say software engineering jobs won't disappear?
Me : I did, one of the myths I talked about back in January 2023. The role will change (including new roles such as machine psychologist) but we'll need just as many through a combination of Jevons Paradox, red queen effect, competition, the chain of comprehension and co-evolution of practice.
X : In English?
Me : We will end up building vastly more software.
X : Like 10x?
Me : Think 50x once competition, reinvestment, practice and automation compound. We've barely scratched the surface. However, this needs those co-evolved practices and we have to turn software engineering into an actual engineering discipline (see myth 3 in comment). Think 5-12 years to settle, the practices are still emerging. We probably won't call it software engineering but some other cringe name.
X : So, no jobs are going?
Me : Tasks are going, jobs are changing. Some jobs will struggle.
X : Examples?
Me : Take a consultancy. You provide resources to others. Your development velocity (the engine of your revenue) increases 50x. But so does everyone else. Your clients are not going to spend more money, and they are also not going to spend less (they are in competition with others). What they are going to expect is a 50x improvement in delivery.
X : So?
Me : Say they spent £10M with you in a year for two projects. Competition will force them to reinvest the savings and so, they're going to spend £10M with you but for 100 projects.
X : What's the problem?
Me : Your sales cycle is. What you used to "sell" in a year (two projects), you're going to have to sell in a week just to stand still. The projects will be the same scale, but the cost per project will plummet. In practice, you're going to have to automate the hell out of sales just to keep up with development. Many ancillary areas will feel enormous pressure as development speed increases: management consultancy, tech support, pre-sales, tech advisory, project management, finance, legal, sales and marketing. And this creates a problem.
X : Which is?
Me : Most consultancies are software delivery businesses run by people who believe it is about relationships. Many believed that hosting was a relationship business, cloud said otherwise. Sales struggled to adapt at first. "AI" will do the same to software delivery. Chances are your client will end up being an AI agent for someone else and your "salesperson" part of a swarm of AI agents being managed by a human. Think wanted boards from Yegge's Wasteland but based around inclusion.
X : Relationships are going?
Me : Any bottlenecks of reading, comprehending, understanding and writing code will reduce (once practices co-evolve) and this will expose bottlenecks elsewhere. Have some AI slop, hopefully this explains it. The good news is this will take time, the bad news is less than you think.
Originally published on LinkedIn.