Will software engineers be more or less relevant in 2024?
Your thoughts?
Software engineers will definitely remain relevant for the foreseeable future.
While things like generative AI and ChatGPT sound really cool, people tend to forget how slow technology actually moves.
I use CoPilot at work as a glorified text editor. It does save me a bunch of time but if my mom jumped into my IDE she would still have no idea how to write code or build applications :).
Software engineers are never going away. Even with the advent of generative AI and ChatGPT, software developers are still in very high demand across different industries.
Software engineers will be more relevant but I see them making less money over time. It's getting too easy to train new developers and engineers when you combine the countless tutorials out there with hot new technologies like ChatGPT.
They will always be needed. They just might not make as much as they have over the past few decades.
No?
More!
More relevant. Here's why:
Good software engineers are hard to find. I've conducted countless job interviews over the course of my career as an engineer and can tell you first hand how hard it is to find reliable talent that won't flake after a few months/years.
Reliance on technology is only growing. We certainly aren't using computers less as the years go by :). As we adopt exciting new technologies around daily living, we become ever more dependent on them. More technology means more demand for people who know how to code and can "communicate most effectively" with technology.
Coding isn't sexy. Coding can afford you a comfortable (and remote) lifestyle, but apart from some epic work / life balance it isn't all that exciting. Most kids these days want to be tech founders not tech slaves learning the nuances of different programming languages. This facilitates the never ending opportunities in the world of tech employment.
Coding isn't easy. Like many things in life, it takes a lot of learning and experimentation to get good at software development. While many have done a 'Hello World' tutorial in some programming language, most don't have the enthusiasm or stamina to push forward. Coding is tedious. Coding is frustrating. Most can't hang.
The economy is getting better. COVID threw everyone a curve ball over these last few years. Not only did we have to survive the pandemic, we also had to deal with a whacky economic environment. As interest rates unexpectedly soared in 2023, many tech employers were forced to cut costs and lay off record numbers of tech workers they hired during the start of the pandemic. Long story short, things have stabilized and demand for tech workers is picking back up as we head into 2024.