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260. Should I Learn Software Development in 2025? · DevQuestions with Tim Corey

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of uncertainty around the software development career track right now.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: People are continually asking me if they made a mistake pursuing software development, especially the rise of AI.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: People like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are saying that AI will replace developers' jobs soon.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: So is this a dying field?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Should people avoid a career in software development going forward?
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we're going to discuss in this episode of Dev Questions.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Software development is more than just writing code.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about the rest of it.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Specifically, let's talk about whether a career in software development is a smart choice in 2025.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: While this is a great discussion to have, I'm going to give the answer up front and then tell you why.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: The answer is that absolutely software development is an excellent field to get started into in 2025.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about why.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Now, AI isn't going to replace developers.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: It can't.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now, whether I say whenever I say that, I hear the following pushback.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, not yet, but it will in some unspecified amount of time, whether it's six months, two years, or whenever that person guesses.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Number two, company acts just replace their developers with AI.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: So therefore, that's not true.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then number three, haven't you seen the Vibcode apps?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Of course it's going to replace developers.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk through each one of those one at a time.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: So first, the idea that AI will be good enough in time because it's already grown so much in a short amount of time.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's a misunderstanding of how AI is built.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: We've talked about that in previous episodes of Dev Questions.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: But let's address the idea that it's grown so fast so it'll only get better over time.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine that I dumped a drum of sand on your living room floor.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: At first, you could scoop up all the sand with a shovel and you'd make fast progress compared to the overall job.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: You might get 70-80% of the sand out very, very quickly.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: But now imagine that I expect you to keep up that pace.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: So you got the first 80% done in let's just say eight minutes.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now you should be done in 10 minutes, right?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's not how that works.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Getting the big piles out is the easy bit.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: The hard part is getting the last bits out.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: That takes a lot more effort for a lot less reward.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's the same idea with AI.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Innovations will slow down once we have less and less to feed it.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Already the amount of data we're ingesting is down.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Once we wire up every application, MCP, so that AI can utilize it, what's left?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: How will AI grow?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: The answer is it will grow more slowly.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: We will still have great advances.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: We'll still have flashy things to show, but what it will not achieve based upon current architecture is actual intelligence.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is we see it passing tests that are hard for us and think, oh, it's smarter than us.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's just good at looking up the answers.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: We've just confused answering tests with intelligence for too long.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's actually a problem for us, not just for us versus AI.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, no, time is not the issue here.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Neither is more data.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: The issue is the fundamental way it works.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: AI makes good guesses.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it makes really good guesses mostly, but they're guesses.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's not a solution for software development.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now let's talk about replacing companies replacing developers with AI.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: I've been around the block a few times with things like this.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: So personally, I find this argument laughable.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: In the US, a big thing about a decade ago was offshoring, sending the software developer jobs to countries where companies could pay less per hour per person.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: At the time, people thought it was the death of developers in the US.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Why would companies hire a US developer at$50 an hour when they could hire a developer in another country for$15 an hour?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: And yet, what happened?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: The number of software development jobs in the US increased within a few years.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: The same thing is true for AI.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Those initial companies who replaced their developers with AI, they've already hired them back.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Companies are always looking for an excuse to do things cheaper.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's always going to be the case.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: But software development isn't just some mindless skill.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, writing code is the least important part of what a software developer does.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now, finally, let's address the Vibecode apps.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: People have been recreating Amazon, eBay, and other business apps and games using vibe coding.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: So doesn't that mean that software developers are done?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you this: have you actually used any of those apps?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Not the tiny ones, not the proof of concepts, real enterprise level apps that have been vibe coded, or games that are fully complete.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: What always seems people showing off something and saying things like, isn't fully complete, but why isn't it complete?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: If it was so simple, why hasn't it been done?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Those who have built small apps fully with AI have had major issues.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: More than a few have pulled their apps and refunded customers because they had major security issues, or because their app couldn't actually do everything it needed to do.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now, let me ask you another question.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: If AI can actually replace developers, why is it that companies are selling you the AI instead of selling virtual developers to companies?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Why is it that the major income stream around AI is actually AI and their tools?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: If it were actually possible, selling the AIs to others would be stupid.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: You have the goose that lays golden eggs, you'd be selling the goose and not the eggs.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: AI companies are selling you access to their AIs because that's where the value is.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: If they could replace developers, they would sell that instead.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: So now a pushback on the idea that AOI will replace developers.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about why now is a great time to become a developer.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, AI allows developers to be more efficient.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: That means that smaller companies can hire a developer or two and get enough done to justify the work.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: That opens up more job opportunities than ever before.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've worked with companies before that they could never hire a developer because hiring one developer often isn't enough.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: You need a couple developers and you need to have enough work for them to do, and you have to kind of consider the costs there, especially when you can buy something off the shelf that's close enough.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if you can hire a developer or two and get a lot more done, well, now they might consider that.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: They might start opening those jobs up.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And guess what there's more of in every country?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Is it big companies with lots of jobs, or is it small companies with a few jobs?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot more small companies with a few jobs.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: A lot more.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it comes to you know, where do you want to see more jobs open up?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's the small companies.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because if there's a hundred thousand small companies for every large company, well, if the 100,000 companies open up two jobs, that's 200,000 developer jobs.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Can a large company open up 200,000 developer jobs?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Probably not.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: So you'll see a lot more value because those small companies can start doing their own custom work.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now, number two, poorly written applications built with AI are going to be a gold mine for real developers.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: So we've already seen that people have vibe code or they've built with AI apps that they worked.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: They worked and they started to sell because of the fact that they worked.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: But then what happens is you find out, oops, they're really unsecure.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Or oops, they've got a serious problem with the data, or oops, we don't know how to fix this system, and AI is not helping us.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden, they need a developer to actually help them fix it.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe a developer that's working with AI, but one that actually understands the development process.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: You see, it's more than just does the application work?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's is it secure?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Is it efficient?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Is it logged?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Is it monitored?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: All the other things that go around an application that aren't the actual application itself, or not the showy bits that people know about.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: And when it comes time for these apps to start being in production, we're gonna see more and more problems, more and more cracks appear.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's where real developers are gonna have a great opportunity to step in and address these issues.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: So essentially, we're coming upon a gold rush.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now's a great time.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Now, number three, the world is only getting more computer controlled.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Developers are the ones that make that happen.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like it or not, your next toaster probably has a computer chip in it.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Your next fridge might have a computer chip in it.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Your washer, your dryer, your bot that cleans your floors, the there's so many things today that they've put computer chips in.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: Now, again, you might not love that, but here's the deal.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: More and more things rely on computer control, which means then software to run that.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: Whether that is software directly on the device, or whether it's an app to control that software, or whether it's a back-end system to maintain and probably track your data for all that stuff.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: But whatever it is, there's more and more computer control in the world today.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: That means more and more developers.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Number four, there'll be a lot of people who can only drive an AI soon.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: So there's gonna be a time where that feels like it works, where people kind of get away with that.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: But being able to stand out among the crowd is going to make you extremely valuable.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because at some point that comes crumbling down.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: And when that does, people are gonna look for people who actually know how to build software applications.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: So just knowing how to drive an AI isn't going to be enough.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: But knowing how to develop and being then powered to be helped with an AI is super valuable.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Software development is changing, but that's been true for the past 40 plus years.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: The only constant has been that it's an increasingly important field and a valuable one to be in.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Every indication points to that trend continuing and even increasing.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now is a great time to become a software developer.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so thanks for listening.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: And as always, I am Tim Corey.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Dev Questions.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to imtimcorey.com and enroll in a course.