It's a tale of two tech worlds: one where humans still hold court, and another where artificial intelligence (AI) reigns supreme. The divide is stark, like the lines on a circuit board, and it's leaving computer science graduates in Washington state - and across the country - wondering if they're part of the solution or just an outdated problem.
As the graduation caps are tossed into the air, the reality check hits hard. More than 117,000 tech workers have been laid off this year alone, according to Layoffs.fyi, with Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Oracle cutting thousands of jobs in Washington state. It's a numbers game that's leaving new graduates like Katherine Palevich feeling anxious about their own job security.
"I'm starting as a software engineer at Apple next month," Palevich said, "but sometimes I've heard people's offers get rescinded, and I get sad for them because you work so hard to get that offer."
The issue isn't that hiring has stopped; it's the entry-level jobs that have vanished like ghosts in the machine. Historically, new engineers would learn by doing, but AI can now handle tasks like testing, documentation, and bug fixing with ease.
"AI can do all of that for you," said Albert Squires, managing director of technology at Fuel Talent. "Today's teams are shrinking to five people, with senior engineers managing AI agents that handle much of the work."
The data backs it up: Wall Street Journal statistics show entry-level tech postings have fallen to 7.5% of the sector, while senior-level postings have climbed to 43%. It's a shift that's got Joshua Tran, set to begin a master's program at UW's Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, feeling like he's stuck in quicksand.
"At the beginning of the year, it felt like AI could do some things we were doing in our jobs," Tran said. "By the end of the year, it looked like it could do everything that an average computer science grad could do in a software engineering role."
Campus conversations reveal a degree that's fundamentally different from just a few years ago.
"I feel like the computer science degree is becoming more like a pre-med type of path where the bar is very high," said Ishan Sinha, a senior at the Allen School. "The bar is now to the point where you just have to be exceptional."
Professors are pushing students to build with AI in the classroom, and that pressure has spilled into graduation ceremonies nationwide, where commencement speakers praising AI have been met with boos.
But Squires' message is blunt: this is where tech is right now, and it's only going faster. Get on board, or you'll be left behind.
Palevich is spending her months before Apple teaching herself to work with AI agents and trying to find the line between using the tools and understanding what's underneath.
"Large language models are just really big autocomplete machines," she said. "My hope is that software engineers are still very much needed, and it's more that their direction to these AI agents will be the future of what software engineering looks like."
Not everyone shares this bleak outlook. Dan Grossman, a professor and vice director at UW's Allen School, says the narrative of a collapse in tech hiring doesn't match the data he sees. Last year, 370 Allen School graduates took software engineering jobs - the most in the school's history.
"I've been asked a lot of times over the last year why the sky is falling, and I keep saying as loudly and clearly as I can - it's not falling," Grossman said. "Companies are figuring out how to change in this AI moment, but they're not shrinking."
As the tech landscape continues to evolve at breakneck speed, one thing is clear: software engineers will be needed, but their role might just become a supporting act in the grand symphony of AI. The question remains - will they adapt, or will they be left behind?
Written by: Jony Spark | The Citizen Edition
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