AI's Impact on Engineering Jobs May Be Different Than Expected
by rbanffy on 1/29/2026, 6:00:10 PM
Comments
by: tracerbulletx
I am very tired of seeing every random person's speculation (framed as real insight) on what's going to happen as they try to signify that they are super involved in AI and super on top of it and therefore still worthy of value and importance in the economy.
1/29/2026, 6:44:00 PM
by: xXSLAYERXx
Senior dev here 15 years experience just turned 50 have family blah blah. I've been contracting for the last two years. The org is just starting to use Claude. I've been delegating - well copy pasting - into chatgpt which has to be the laziest way to leverage AI. I've been so successful (meaning haven't had to do anything really except argue with chatgpt when it goes off on some tangent) with this approach that I can't even be bothered to set up my Claude environment. I swear when this contract is over I'm opening a mobile food cart.
1/29/2026, 6:48:43 PM
by: firasd
It's puzzling to me that all this theorizing doesn't just look at the actual effects of AI. It's very non-intuitive<p>For example the fact that AI can code as well as Torvalds doesn't displace his economic value. On the contrary he pays for a subscription so he can vibe code!<p>The actual work AI has displaced is stuff like: freelance translation, graphic illustration, 'content writing' (writing seo optimized pages for Google) etc. That's instructive I suppose. Like if your income source can already be put on upwork then AI can displace it<p>So even in those cases there are ways to not be displaced. Like diplomatic translation work can be part of a career rather than just a task so the tool doesn't replace your 'job'.
1/29/2026, 6:53:56 PM
by: Swizec
The main thing to understand about the impact of AI tools:<p>Somehow the more senior you are [in the field of use], the better results you get. You can run faster and get more done! If you're good, you get great results faster. If you're bad, you get bad results faster.<p>You still gotta understand what you're doing. GeLLMan Amnesia is real.
1/29/2026, 6:47:52 PM
by: SoftTalker
"Most people who drive cars now couldn’t find the radiator cap if they were paid to, and that’s fine."<p>That's not fine IMO. That is a basic bit of knowledge about a car and if you don't know where the radiator cap is you will eventually have to pay through the nose to someone who does know (and possibly be stranded somewhere). Knowing how to check and fill coolant isn't like knowing how to rebuild a transmission. It's very simple and anyone can understand it in 5 minutes if they only have the curiosity.
1/29/2026, 7:16:37 PM
by: simonw
Important to note that this article is specifically about chip design engineering jobs - it's on an industry publication called Semiconductor Engineering.
1/29/2026, 7:05:26 PM
by: llmslave
Its pretty clear that any white collar work where the outputs can be verified and tested in a reinforcement learning environment, will be automated
1/29/2026, 6:52:20 PM
by: Ancalagon
I still feel like with all of these tools I as a senior engineer have to keep a close eye on what they're doing. Like an exuberant junior (myself 10 years ago), inevitably they still go off the rails and I need to reign them in. They still make the occasional security or performance flaw - often which can be resolved by pointing it out.
1/29/2026, 6:33:00 PM
by: ericmcer
"in the 1920s and 1930s, to be able to drive a car you needed to understand things like spark advance, and you needed to know how to be able to refill the radiator halfway through your trip"<p>A car still feels weirdly grounded in reality though, and the abstractions needed to understand it aren't too removed from nature (metal gets mined from rocks, forged into engine, engine blows up gasoline, radiator cools engine).<p>The idea that as tech evolves humans just keep riding on top of more and more advanced abstractions starts to feel gross at a certain point. That point is some of this AI stuff for me. In the same way that driving and working on an old car feels kind of pure, but driving the newest auto pilot computer screen car where you have never even popped the hood feels gross.
1/29/2026, 7:16:37 PM
by: XenophileJKO
I think one thing here is, don't be fooled by past performance. Capabilities ramp, usage can't mature until capability plates.<p>I fear the true impact is much different than extrapolating current trends.
1/29/2026, 6:40:07 PM
by: wallstbot
First off the submission is plainly AI output. Second it's about electrical engineering jobs but everyone here is talking about software.
1/29/2026, 7:33:31 PM
by: boogrpants
The biggest impact to engineering jobs is end of ZIRP fueled trickle down Ponzi schemes.<p>It's why Elon and others had been pushing the Fed to lower them.<p>Am in my late 40s working in tech since the 90s. The tech job economy is way closer to the pre-2010s.<p>Whole lot of people who jumped into easy office job money still living in 2019.
1/29/2026, 6:51:30 PM
by: myleshenderson
> An ongoing talent shortage requires more efficient use of engineers, and AI can help.<p>An ongoing desire to avoid paying engineers... FTFY
1/29/2026, 7:55:24 PM
by: RicoElectrico
If AI would ever become sentient, it surely will kill itself after having to endure Cadence and Synopsys tools.
1/29/2026, 7:14:58 PM
by: relaxing
Really dislike this style of clickbait headline where there’s zero indication of what the point of the article is.<p>What impact, what expectation, how uncertain is this assessment of “may be”? Are you feeling understimulated enough to click and find out?
1/29/2026, 6:58:25 PM
by: cbyteai
Mostly reads like another abstraction shift, not a sudden replacement of engineers.
1/29/2026, 6:17:38 PM
by: mahdidevil
[dead]
1/29/2026, 7:08:24 PM
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1/29/2026, 7:40:49 PM
by: ihuzaifazahoor1
I’ve noticed teams don’t replace engineers, they redistribute work. Senior engineers often gain leverage while junior roles shift toward tooling and review.
1/29/2026, 6:17:04 PM