Honestly, the software job market has always been small. The big lie pushed by tech giants was that everyone should learn to code, not because there were unlimited jobs, but because they wanted a massive talent pool to cherry-pick from.
But the reality? We’ve always been competing. Against overseas devs. Against the founder’s nephew who built a WordPress site once. Against the tides of startup hype and budget freezes.
And the software engineering job? It was never just about writing code. It’s about selling yourself. Convincing PMs not to ship garbage. Debugging messes without crying for help. Surviving org chaos. You need a whole toolkit beyond just syntax.
The current contraction isn’t just about LLMs, it’s about companies pulling back on risk. When the economy picks up, AI won’t be a convenient excuse anymore. The market ebbs and flows, same as it ever was.
But the reality? We’ve always been competing. Against overseas devs. Against the founder’s nephew who built a WordPress site once. Against the tides of startup hype and budget freezes.
And the software engineering job? It was never just about writing code. It’s about selling yourself. Convincing PMs not to ship garbage. Debugging messes without crying for help. Surviving org chaos. You need a whole toolkit beyond just syntax.
The current contraction isn’t just about LLMs, it’s about companies pulling back on risk. When the economy picks up, AI won’t be a convenient excuse anymore. The market ebbs and flows, same as it ever was.