Rob LeClerc on why SWEs survive the AI era: 'it's the Red Queen effect'
robleclerc · x · 2026-10-28
Rob LeClerc argues software engineers will still exist in five years, citing the Red Queen effect: if you lay off engineers, a competitor with more people will push their product farther. He quotes a viral piece on the five stages every serious AI user goes through — learning tools, building workflows, getting 'merged' by the next model update, growing more exhausted as capability expands the to-do list, and finally accepting you can't outpace model iteration.
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