I just finished a PhD in stats, and before that, studied computer science. I had planned to go back to industry to do software engineering or be a data scientist afterwards.
However, it seems that in the meantime, vibe coding has taken over the software industry and swallowed most data scientist roles. Few open positions, and the ones that do exist are just pushing a button instead of thinking and solving problems. Is this a correct assessment? Should I try to get back in or just find a new career? I am not too keen on staying in academia either.
AI poses one major risk to SE in general: the dropped need for low/entry level employees.
It used to be, a senior would have a team of mid- and junior engineers, senior would be in charge of the big picture while the team learned, and delivered the actual low level tasks.
But with AI, companies started hiring only seniors. Which is an issue - now the market is full of “entry level” graduates who simply can’t find a job because nobody’s hiring. And seniors are left wrangling AI agents that don’t learn, don’t work autonomously, don’t ask questions, don’t bring ideas.
In my experience the AI agents do if you ask them. Rather than giving them a problem and telling them to solve it autonomously, I ask them to give me feedback on my plan and propose potential alternatives before starting any coding, and often I get good suggestions from them this way.
If your idea of an idea is “concept that I personally am not aware of but which has been conceived, elaborated on and documented by another human being”…
Then yes, totally!
The AI can extrapolate, but even if it couldn’t, ultimately I need an idea that works, not necessarily a completely original idea that works (and most humans don’t come up with completely original ideas very often either).
Yeah, I was gonna say, most engineers are gonna be taking a lot of code from the internet anyway. Most problems modern companies face have already been solved in one way or another, its just figuring out what fits your specific product and needs. That being said, I’m pro “ai as a tool in non-creative fields”, but it certainly doesn’t replace engey level engineers. I see it closer to a calculator or like factory machine. It can cut out the grunt work and summarize things well, but it takes a looooot of steering to actually work. And the engineer can maybe learn some new concepts or techniques along the way