Karthik

This is just a brain-dump of random thoughts because I'm a little lost at the moment and I need to be set straight.

SWE: Many smart people around me believe that pure web development can be automated, optimized, and almost entirely replaced by AI tools (Claude Code, Codex, whatever the fuck else is out there). On the other side of the fence, are those who believe that with AI comes more software and hence more software engineers who can build things with AI, aka. more prompt engineers.

Automation: In cases of past automation, i.e. the automotive industry, companies were able to produce more cars with less people, and ignoring the last couple years' economic uncertainties, I believe that that's happening now in SWE. The people who used to make the cars were either completely fucking cooked, started fixing up the robots (upskilling), or moved into other service industries (lateral moves).

Parallels: Based on that sordid history, you have to expect something similar will happen with AI and software engineers. If you do a little bit of pattern matching here you'll get the following. Upskilling will come to mean a select few SWEs becoming super skilled, highly-valued prompt engineers that can take over an entire team's work, and if you're not one of them say goodbye to those six-figures. Lateral moves will mean a great exodus of generic SWEs into other fields: government, health, cyber, etc., where it's very likely they'll be making less money. And cooked is cooked - just like all the jokes.

Untouchables: In the future, me and you want to become one of the untouchable few people who upskilled, survived it all, and are now making more money than the rest of our class. If you're super driven or go to a good school, you have the means and odds to do this. That starts with finding out all the different ways to upskill beyond the generic SWE. It'll be like finding a little tree stump to stand on in the incoming flood.

AI Resistance: I think a lot of bs has been said about what makes something truly AI resistant. No one knows anything, because no one knows how advanced AI will become; hence, its the CEOs proclaiming that nothing is resistant, and the long-time developers proclaiming that AI is a bunch of bogus hype. I think something in the middle is probably more accurate. First of all, never trust anything out the mouth of some nerd in SF, and second, the vets of the field probably have some arrogance when it comes to talking about the replicability of their life's work. So bottom line, I believe just like many others that there is gonna be a lot of replacement by AI but some things are won't change enough to become unrecognizable. They'll be safe-ish and worth checking out.

Robotics: This is the thing I'm currently leaning towards to, but keep in mind this shifts every couple of weeks. I think for robots to function in the real world, you have to go through so many fucking hoops and rings that there is no shot than an AI could automate the whole thing. Deploying the robot takes engineers, and as an added bonus there's always opportunities for "robot safety" type rules because of the Terminator and whatnot.

Cybersecurity: Was seriously considering this, but upon a little more research, I don't think its worth it. The number of entry-level jobs for cyber is so astonishingly low, it makes it infeasible for most SWEs to find something.

Health Care: Probably a good one (harkening back to the Terminator argument) but most SWEs view the health care space as too complicated and as of now, health tech is no as hot as it once was.

Blah: You could probably find a butload of other fields with some level of AI resistance, and I've probably just been Captain Obvious about all this, but let's just move on to what I'd like to do.

Me: Dillema is SWE is dying but the only internships available are SWE related. So what to do?

-> Must get SWE internships | don't worry about robotics for the time being, just do research/club on side!!

-> When you get an internship in big tech, try to get a robotics related team if possible, if not it's okay!

-> Pivot completely, specialize completely, absorb completely the robotics side of things and blaze through the SWE side because it doesn't matter if it's gone in a few years.

-> Goal is that when these SWE internships dry up in a few years, I'll have the experience at FAANG, and it's mostly robotics too, so it's worth something!

-> After graduating, shift completely to some chillish robotics type job!

-> Live long and prosper ts.

Cya.