The Case Against An Imminent Software Developer Apocalypse

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• AI is greatly boosting developer productivity, not unemployment.
• One measurement says nan developer organization has accrued by 50% since 2022.
• Emerging role: overseeing swarms of AI agents.

Given nan dour headlines arsenic of precocious concerning nan diminishing amounts of entry-level package improvement jobs, coupled pinch predictions of applications wholly AI-generated, 1 could beryllium forgiven for assuming that package developers whitethorn soon beryllium an endangered species. However, nan information tells a different story.

James Bessen, professor astatine Boston University, has been pushing backmost for immoderate time against nan talk of AI and automation displacing jobs connected a wide scale, and lately has been arguing that nan roles of package developers are obscurity adjacent extinction.

Software developer jobs person continued to turn

AI is surely not sidesplitting nan package developer, Bessen said successful a caller analysis. AI is taking complete package improvement tasks and boosting productivity and output, but that is not translating into mislaid jobs, he argued. Instead, nan types of package skills sought by companies are changing.

"Surprisingly, however, aft 3 years of AI use, package developer jobs person continued to turn robustly, reaching grounds levels of employment -- 2.5 cardinal successful February," Bessen said successful nan report, citing information from nan US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of package developers successful nan US has grown by complete 400,000, aliases 19%, since ChatGPT was introduced successful 2022. At that time, nan employed package developer organization was conscionable nether 2.1 million.

Also: This AI master says nan occupation apocalypse isn't coming, moreover if you're a coder - here's why

Worldwide, nan number of individuals identifying themselves arsenic package developers was estimated astatine astir 20.8 million, up from 17.3 cardinal successful 2022, for a 20% increase, according to data from JetBrains. Other estimates spell moreover higher: As of early 2025, Kostas Korakitis, head of investigation for SlashData, estimated nan world developer organization astatine conscionable complete 47 cardinal -- an summation of astir 50% from Q1 2022, erstwhile nan number was conscionable complete 31 million. Of course, this includes nan scope of group who are progressive successful immoderate shape of development, which could scope from moving successful ample companies to home-based projects.

A shift, alternatively than extinction

There are academics who are besides seeing a displacement successful package jobs, alternatively than extinction.

"AI is not sidesplitting your occupation options. It's expanding them," nan head of nan University of Washington's engineering school, Magdalena Balazinska, precocious told 2,000 undergraduates, arsenic reported successful CNN.

Also: AI is getting amended astatine your job, but you person clip to adjust, according to MIT

"Instead of wiping retired jobs, AI is shifting nan tasks of developers. They are doing little regular coding activity and devoting much of their schedule to overseeing swarms of AI-powered code-writing agents -- autonomous bots that tin complete tasks. Engineers, successful turn, are spending much clip designing nan building of package and generating ideas."

Skills successful demand, arsenic cited by a Pluralsight analysis, see moving pinch nan large 3 unreality providers (AWS, Azure, and GCP); MCP servers; AI and unreality security; SQL; Python; Agentic AI; executive-level communication; captious thinking; mini connection models; and web engineering.

Will nan occupation apocalypse ever materialize?

So, backmost to nan mobility of whether nan much-talked-about exertion occupation apocalypse will materialize.

Software and technology-focused occupations look a greater vulnerability to AI, arsenic documented successful a caller study retired of Anthropic, and galore professionals successful nan study voiced concerns astir their imaginable for displacement. 

"Like anyone who has a achromatic collar occupation these days I'm 100% concerned, beautiful overmuch 24/7 concerned astir losing my occupation yet to AI," said 1 package engineer. In different case, a package developer felt AI was making their activity harder, watching that "when AI arrived, nan task managers started giving harder and harder tickets and bugs to solve."

The productivity uptick developers are seeing whitethorn yet beryllium a boost to their master opportunities, however. "An important and perchance disruptive alteration is happening, but nan communal position misunderstands what is going on," Bessen pointed retired successful his report. "Careful lawsuit studies find that AI improves nan productivity of package developers -- that is, nan package produced per developer -- by 30%, 50%, aliases more. And nan complaint of productivity betterment successful package improvement is improving."

At nan aforesaid time, "the number of employed package developers has continued to increase, demonstrating that productivity maturation does not needfully connote occupation losses," he said.

The logic for this, he explained, is that "the existent output of package has been expanding also, overmuch faster than productivity astatine astir 9.3% per year. This implies that request for package is increasing. If request is expanding faster than nan complaint of productivity growth, nan number of developers must summation moreover though nan number of developers needed to nutrient a fixed amount of package has been dropping."

Pervasive misconception

There is besides a misconception that now pervades markets that automation simply substitutes machines for humans, doing nan aforesaid things successful nan aforesaid way. Technology, mixed pinch quality innovation, not only lowers costs and prices, but besides improves merchandise quality, and enables caller and amended products -- including package itself.

A coming flood of caller package products, now much apt to beryllium enhanced by AI, will proceed to create jobs for developers, Bessen predicted. "Thus, wide unemployment of package developers seems improbable to hap soon."

This doesn't mean nan occupation descriptions of developers aliases different machine occupations will stay static. AI is shifting and re-inventing these roles, Bessen added.