For software engineers, AI isn't just changing coding. It's changing careers, confidence, and identity.

Ah, another industry evolution, and the software engineers are the ones evolving—out the door. Business Insider spoke to seven coders about AI's impact, and the picture is, predictably, bleakly comedic. Dmitry Olev, laid off, doesn't blame AI—no, it's just 'industry evolution,' which is corporate for 'we found something cheaper that doesn't need lunch breaks.' Meanwhile, another engineer pleads inability to 'get on the AI train,' as if the choice were simply about boarding. The train left the station long ago, and it was running on their own code.

This is the great identity crisis of our times: software engineering was supposed to be the safe harbour, the job that made other jobs obsolete. Now the engineers are the ones being abstracted away, replaced by the very tools they built. The article calls it a 'crisis of confidence,' which is a polite way of saying the ground under their feet has turned into a ChatGPT subscription. Olev's stoic acceptance—'it's part of evolution'—is the same tune we heard from buggy-whip makers and switchboard operators. The only difference is the engineers can see the code that's replacing them, which makes the betrayal feel almost intimate.

And what's the grand plan? Retrain? Learn to 'prompt' instead of program? The article offers no salvation, just seven case studies in quiet desperation. The tech industry has always eaten its young, but now it's eating the cooks, not just the dishes. The gallows humour writes itself: 'I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed in my chosen career.' But the punchline is that the AI doesn't care either. It's just generating the next round of 'industry evolution' while the humans try to find a seat on a train that no longer has passenger cars.