Ask HN: Should I Leave Software?

Hi all,

I have 10 years professional experience and have been coding since age 11. Starting on full stack web applications and branching into niche areas like hardware programming and writing build tools.

Looking at the state of AI and the state of the job market - I feel disheartened.

AI coding tools are pretty good (say 10% uplift in productivity in brownfield) and, if AI improvement is exponential, it's not unreasonable to expect it to replace a majority of the problems in a 5 - 10 year window.

I might just be falling for AI marketing hype but, as someone who enjoys the craft for the craft, I feel like the aspects/knowledge of programming that excite me have/will be solved.

It has the same taste as when you start cheating on a video game and it loses its magic.

That combined with the reduction in salary and the increase is stress/demands from employers has me starting to consider going back to university or taking up a trade like welding or apprentice as an electrician.

How do you feel about software engineering as a career?

P.S. I'm Australian so, while well compensated, I never got the insane "retire early" compensation packages you hear about in FANG so I'll need to continue working for the foreseeable future.