It's an asymmetric relationship between companies and (your example) software engineers. One side, the software engineers, can withhold their labor or sell it

It's an asymmetric relationship between companies and (your example) software engineers. One side, the software engineers, can withhold their labor or sell it to somebody else. Nobody is irreplaceable. Large companies in particular have spare capacity to replace you if what you do is actually important enough. A lot of the time, withholding your labor is simply an opportunity cost to the employer. The employer on the other hand has the threat of violence to coerce you. Without a job, we lose shelter, food, transportation, health insurance, schools for our children and so on. You, as an employee, are an inconvenience to the employer. They want to replace you with an automated system that doesn't leave, doesn't require pay raises, is predictable and so on. And sure, for now, an AI system can't replace a software engineer. I suspect it won't be able to for a very long time. But the jobs around you will disappear. The flood waters are rising. Your relationship with your employer is adversarial. If they could get rid of you they would. Currently they can't. That's all that's going on.