Why this swe job might look very different next year

I genuinely think the software engineer job description we know today is going to change hard, maybe within a year.

Not because engineers are useless. Because the shape of work is changing.

With my Claude Code workflow, a lot of what used to take days now takes hours:

  • planning architecture options
  • writing first-pass implementation
  • generating tests
  • finding obvious bugs
  • refactoring repetitive code

So if AI can do a large part of execution, the value moves upstream:

  • choosing the right problem
  • making product tradeoffs
  • shipping fast with judgment
  • understanding users and business context

I do not think engineering disappears. I think average engineering gets automated, and taste + decision quality become the real differentiator.

That is why I keep writing, experimenting, and building in public.