To be pedantic, "coding" as a profession hardly exists in the US today. No one goes to work, types code for 8 hours, and walks out without doing anything else.

To be pedantic, "coding" as a profession hardly exists in the US today. No one goes to work, types code for 8 hours, and walks out without doing anything else. In a typical SWE's day/week, they must competently perform all of the following activities: - Determine business needs, translate those into requirements and design specs - Plan upcoming work - Develop testing strategies - Integrate custom hardware/software with other custom hardware/software - Create and maintain documentation - Handle emergency situations - Communicate intelligently with peers/managers about the state of their work - Mentor new employees Will some of these tasks be partially or fully automated? I hope so (looking at you documentation). But it's gonna take a while to automate every portion of every SWE job. And someone's gonna have to figure out how to automate those jobs anyway, and who better than another SWE? One thing I am concerned about, is that current AI/LLMs are as good as a lot of junior developers. My pair programming sessions with ChatGPT at my side are as productive as any session I've had with a junior dev (sometimes more productive, sorry to say). It's possible that, contrary to popular belief, the demand for mid-level+ SWEs will go UP as a result of AI - because fewer junior devs can make it past the great AI filter.