'Software skills are irrelevant' is doomerism: engineers argue their value is 10x levered by AI
lateinteraction · x · 2026-10-19
- Context: paraschopra shared a "heart-breaking" Hacker News thread of software engineers concluding "my software skills are now irrelevant" and "the LLM can do everything now."
- The pushback (colemurray, amplified by lateinteraction): this is doomerism and industry nihilism. Across hundreds of engineers among his clients, software skills matter more than ever — judgment, architecture decisions, deciding what NOT to build, and spotting better approaches remain the core.
- Core argument: real engineering work is now 10x levered; capable engineers are no longer bottlenecked by implementation time and their value has gone up. The claim that PMs and marketers out-build engineers with LLMs doesn't match what he sees.
- Why it matters: the same HN thread is read as proof of industry collapse by some and evidence of an engineering premium by others — a representative sample of the AI-and-jobs debate.
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