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For Adam Janes, the odd thing about being a software engineer these days is that he rarely writes code anymore.Instead, he spends more time drafting specifications in English that describe what a piece of software should do.
AI kicks out the code. He reviews and refines it.Janes isn't alone.At Spotify, the company's top developers haven't drafted "a single line of code" since December, Gustav Söderström, the co-CEO, said on a February earnings call. Instead, engineers often supervise AI as it generates code."It is a big change. It is real, and it's happening fast," Söderström said.The speed at which AI is reshaping software development — measured in months, not years — is stirring a mix of excitement and anxiety. Last week, the tech company Block laid off more than 40% of its workforce, saying the cuts reflected AI-driven efficiencies.For some software developers, there is an added reckoning: If the core act of coding — long a source of status and identity — becomes automated, what does it actually mean to be an engineer?The threat isn't just displacement. It's a total recalibration of identity.Janes, a fractional CTO based in Australia, takes pride in the skills he's built over a decade learning to write "elegant code" that's both simple and easy for others to read."You get this real sort of craftsman feel," he told Business Insider.Now, Janes said, he spends more time creating robust specs for the AI tools building the software. That way, he can focus on solving problems."There's still a lot of engineering know-how, and this feeling of crafting, but it's kind of shifting to a totally different domain," he said.For some engineers, it doesn't feel the same.Annie Vella was 6 years old when her parents, tired of constantly handing her puzzles, bought her a computer whose manuals contained basic code. Curious, she said, she began typing in commands."I learned at such a young age the satisfaction of turning these words into something moving on a screen, as rudimentary as it was," Vella told Business Insider.That early thrill of making something from nothing stayed with her. As a hands-on developer, she relished solving technical puzzles that few others could.Now that AI systems are becoming more capable, Vella feels conflicted. On one hand, the tools help her move faster, solve more complex problems, and improve quality. Plus, as a technologist, she finds AI's capabilities incredible.On the other hand, if she were still early in her career, she'd be "very upset about what's happening right now," Vella said.Vella, who lives in New Zealand, recently completed a master's thesis examining AI's impact on her profession. There is, she said, a "sense of magic" in watching AI spin up large amounts of code at once. Still, Vella said, its output doesn't deliver the same feeling as that of staying up half the night wrestling with a stubborn bug and finally getting it to work."The satisfaction comes more from the friction that doesn't exist so much anymore," she said.The struggle to overcome a challenge is often central to how people experience meaning in their work, said Mike Brooks, a psychologist in Austin."We evolved to struggle to survive," he told Business Insider. "We have to have challenges."Brooks has written about the loss of purpose technologists can feel when AI takes over tasks that once required effort and skill. Working hard for something, he said, is part of what makes it worthwhile. Scarcity, not abundance, makes something precious."If you haven't eaten in five days and you get a banana, it will be the best meal you have ever had," Brooks said.If AI can almost instantly generate what once required hours of concentration, the psychological rewards can diminish, he said. For engineers who built their identities around solving hard problems, that shift can feel destabilizing.Jorge Melegati sees that tension in his research. A software developer and assistant professor at the University of Porto in Portugal, he studies how generative AI is reshaping developers' self-perception.Many people begin coding because they want to build things, he said. As engineering roles evolve into overseeing AI agents, the developer's job can become "much simpler," yet also less satisfying, Melegati said.Previous research, he said, suggests that would-be tech workers often view testing roles as less prestigious and less challenging than building software from scratch."It's considered a simpler job — not so challenging and not so rewarding," Melegati said.That doesn't mean demand for the work will disappear. The US government projects that employment for "software developers, quality assurance analysts and testers" will increase 15% from 2024 through 2034 — far faster than the average for all jobs.As AI's capabilities grow, many engineers are still negotiating what their roles will become, including Keenan Brock, a Massachusetts software developer who spent years honing his coding skills and mastering languages such as Java and Ruby on Rails."I focused on this one thing, and now it doesn't matter anymore," he told Business Insider.So he's had to shift. Rather than "arm wrestling with a computer," Brock said, he enjoys being able to focus more on the problems businesses face and how software can help."Now I get to read between the lines," Brock said. "Somebody says, 'I want a faster horse,' and you're like, 'Oh, maybe you want a car.'"Do you have a story to share about AI's effect on your career? Contact this reporter at tparadis@businessinsider.com.
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