> Give it a couple of years and the companies will not need senior software engineers. They will need someone to steer the AI, maybe. Why would anyone need senior software engineers?

Right, companies won't need software engineers. They'll just need someone who can use tools to produce source code and maintain the generated artifacts, plus make domain-specific technical decisions like "what should the system do when two users update the same record as the same time" or "how should the system behave when a message in the queue cannot be processed".

We really oughta come up with a job title for these people.

Because the models do what you ask them. "Claude, do this thing, be thorough, no mistakes" is not a good prompt.

What do you think "steering the AI" means? It is not like we need someone to sit at a desk and type "yes, implement it". Of course if you are a sane person you mean someone who will determine if the AI is doing "the right thing" and change its direction if it is wrong. That person is almost by definition a senior engineer.

[flagged]