A career in software development

Who thought I Things I’ll mention.

1. In 2025, LLMs/AI can not yet fully replace a software engineer but there are impacts.
2. Success in software development is related to knowledge recycling.
3. LLMs/AI is leverage to solve problems you have no expertise in.

Am I Being Replaced?

Short answer is no, not yet. At this point (2025) LLMs can not operate alone. It struggles to solve problems that require a running memory.

However, I remember my early career days where I spent days fixing very simple UI or logic bugs with single line changes. It’s pretty clear that these real of problems can be automated away with LLMs today.

The missing link might just be a LLM with ability to synthesize memory and allow them to recall summaries of context. Idk, I digress.

Success in Software Development

At the end software development is just a continuous learning cycle. If you don’t stop learning and continue on to pick up new skills along the way you are unlikely to get replaced by AI.

Problems Outside My Domain

I can write JavaScript/TypeScript without looking anything up. I can read and understand most C style languages but I can’t write them with the same fluency. With AI I can write any program in any language. That’s definitely a level up thanks to LLMs.

The other day I wrote a Text Decoder for UTF8 in C++ thanks to AI. Not something I would have easily accomplished before 2020.