You might wonder, how is the software engineering job different nowadays?

I started a remote job recently. It’s a startup with less than 15 people, ~5 engineers and this is my first job after the AI / LLM revolution. We use Cursor to write AI assisted code. Here’s my experience:

• During onboarding, you ask questions about the codebase to AI (instead of your teammates)
• When building new features, you discuss architecture and tradeoffs with AI (instead of your teammates)
• AI reviews your code (instead of your teammates)
• Everyone seems smarter behind the screen, everything people do seem less impressive
• There is less critical thinking required
• It’s easier to get started on tasks, you just need to write a prompt
• Learning times have decreased, it’s faster to use a new framework / library / language
• You don’t first learn and do the task, now you first have AI do the task, and then you learn
• You have AI implement multiple approaches in parallel, then choose the one you like the most
• It’s way faster to build a first version or prototype
• As a senior engineer, your role is to have “taste”, you decide what is “good code”
• The job isn’t to write code any more, it’s to be an AI operator
• The bar has moved, employers expect more productivity from you
• Companies not only have to budget for salaries, but also for AI tokens
• Coding was free, now every line costs money

The software engineering job is definitely different now. It feels a bit easier to be honest. I still enjoy it after 15+ years.