A couple of years ago, AI tools for programming were just about doing smart autocomplete which really wasn’t as smart as many believed.
Today is quite different and today they can create complete applications just by giving them instructions in normal language. Programs like Claude Code or Codex write, test and fix code almost alone. The developers see it and know that it is a real wonder… but it also scares them.
Roland Dreier, who has worked on Linux, confirms this. According to him, in six months the AI went from helping a little to doing entire tasks alone. «I tell him ‘this test fails, fix it’ and he does it. For large projects, it’s up to ten times faster than writing it myself.»
No more typing hours and hours to create code
Many are wondering if this means the end of writing code by hand. The answer, according to those who use AI daily, is yes. Dreier says he still reviews code, but hardly writes Rust or any other language. «The AI takes care of the syntax,» he explains.
Of course, this has ultimately allowed him to finish projects that he had pending for years. They used to be tedious, like scripts to copy photos or small programs. Now, the barrier is gone and you can launch all these jobs in hours.
But all this is not just rosy and there is fear. They no longer only talk about the potential mistakes that AI can make, which is a topic to talk about at length. The fact of what will happen to their employment is also on the minds of many.
One of the programmers interviewed flatly states that yes, AI is going to take away their jobs: «First writing code, then architecture, then product management. Anyone who doesn’t adapt, out.»
Some programmers are already accepting higher salaries in fast food jobs
But this is not all and there is something more. Getting your dream job as a programmer is no longer as easy as before.
The serious problem is that this has reached such a point that There are recent graduates in this sector who, after sending hundreds or thousands of applications, have only received calls from fast food chains. And, if before there were plenty of offers, it seems that now the competition is extreme.
Going to the numbers, in 2024, there were more than 170,000 students in computer science degrees in the US, double the number a decade before. But this has now changed and the big ones like Amazon, Microsoft, Meta or Intel have cut thousands of positions, and AI tools now do in seconds what a junior programmer would do in hours.
This has closed many doors for those who are entering the market and the figures speak for themselves. The unemployment rate for recent computer science graduates is already around 6%, and in computer engineering it exceeds 7%. To compare, in majors such as biology or art history it barely reaches 3%. And for those looking for their first job, this feels like running into a wall.
But the problem is not only that less is hired, but that entry-level positions are exactly the ones that AI replaces most easily.. This leaves many people out before a person even reads their profile.
Furthermore, companies are no longer just looking for you to know how to program and want people who perfectly control AI, who know how to understand it, integrate it and work with it. The problem is that many universities are late in introducing this content. In this case, it is up to the students themselves to proactively get to work with this technology.
If you continue down this path, There is talk that, between now and 2030, up to 90 million jobs will be lost due to automation, although more than 170 million new ones could also be generated. The balance is positive, but with a cost that cannot be ignored or looked the other way.
Comment that, of course, these are some isolated cases and that the reality is that, at least for now, programmers seem to be safe as far as the arrival of AI is concerned and that it, as you could read at the beginning, has become more of an ally than an enemy.