Engineer's verdict: AI eats people, not SWE jobs — edge-case thinkers win
kmeanskaran · x · 2026-09-23
Responding to the 'AI will take SWE jobs' chorus since GPT-3.5, the author argues from production experience: large systems with thousands of users still need human system-design judgment, and coding agents barely improved even after Opus 4.8. Freelancers can thrive by using AI for fast PoCs and iterating toward working solutions, but value lies in edge cases AI can't see — what breaks in prod, what users will ask. Conclusion: 'AI will eat people, not jobs'; high-level problem solvers who handle edge cases will be in high demand.
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