This question torments everyone: is it really true that in 10 years programme...

rabiarahi

Spoiler (no). Don't even doubt that it's always a good time to enter the IT industry, and it really will never be that way for some professions.

Well, now let's figure out why. For many years, there have been debates about how many professions will die out with the development of progress. This is a rather painful topic, because it is true. And young accountants, cashiers, salespeople, lawyers, call center employees, drivers, journalists and many, many others are not straining themselves in vain: the need for these services is decreasing, prophecies are coming true.

Why it is not a disaster

Automation of labor optimizes production, improves the speed of product creation, its quality, and reduces the need for manual labor. This is a normal course of life, and we all calmly adapt to it. After all, no one suffers now because social media marketing service coachmen, stove-setters, readers, mounted policemen, accountants, seamstresses are no longer needed, but these skills were once necessary, some professions had to be mastered, studied.

Nevertheless, with the development of progress, the need for some professions disappeared, and others came to replace them.

Uniqueness is a chance for exclusivity

If you have some skills that are objectively no longer widely needed, there are two ways: master a new, in-demand profession or achieve such filigree mastery in yours that it will transfer your services to the premium segment. And, of course, you need to be able to “sell” yourself, present yourself “tastily” and justify your importance, so you will still have to master the skills of successful sales. And then you can become a one-off manufacturer, for example, of hand-lace handkerchiefs that are not available anywhere else, and this is an expensive luxury sphere, in which there is a demand for exclusivity in our world of mass consumer goods. And if only a few can go the second way, then the first one - master a new, in-demand profession - is suitable for everyone who feels that the market requires new skills. And programming is one of the win-win options.

Let's get back to programmers. Why is a decrease in demand predicted for them?

Programming is a very general concept that is divided into a thousand specializations and skills: front-end or back-end, programming languages, knowledge of certain frameworks or features, emotional intelligence level and other soft skills that make each specialist more or less valuable in the labor market. Because of the popularity of this profession, as they say, all the schoolchildren in the world, having learned how to build a website on a constructor, rushed to the exchanges and brought down this market with their dumping. So, it is precisely such “specialists” who will soon lose their prospects, because such skills are gradually becoming “default” skills. Due to the fact that such “specialists” call themselves programmers, a feeling of loss of value of the profession is created. This devalues ​​real developers with serious knowledge. They are becoming harder to find, but their value is increasing. Self-taught dumpers create panic that there is no demand, but there is none for such pseudo-programming services. They can be compared to a service like a laundress, which ceased to be needed when washing machines appeared. Such a decrease in demand is normal, logical and does not apply to the services of smart developers.

Just 10 years ago, programming was a complex process consisting of idea decomposition, algorithm writing, coding, unit testing, deployment, and system/integration testing. Then came usability testing and, possibly, monkey testing. And all of this was done in stages with a small "shade" of automation - script writing. 10 years have passed, and the process has evolved, a huge number of CI/CD tools have appeared that allow you to compile, test, and deploy with preliminary infrastructure creation in one click. And all this without additional human actions, that is, "AU-TO-MA-TI-CHES-KI". What do we have left? Usability testing, idea decomposition, algorithm writing, and coding - not that much work for programmers.

Let's dream some more. In 10 years, systems based on neural networks on neuromorphic processors (or even on quantum computers) will produce algorithms and code in the chosen language better and more accurately than any modern programmer, because the testing process itself will not be one of the stages of development, but directly the core of writing the code of the system with Machine Learning.

It would seem that there will really be less work for programmers. But! People came up with projects/automation. And it is proactive specialists with a non-trivial approach to solving problems who are in great demand now, and will be even more necessary in 10 years.

Therefore, it is so important to pump up your technical and soft skills, as well as work on your English level (the most “tasty” projects are developed for American and European customers).

If you continue to copy-paste code day after day, being a simple performer, then I will say right away: you will definitely be replaced by robots in the future.

And if you are a true professional in your field: analyze the work done, suggest improvements, optimize processes and always be on the wave of innovations in the IT sphere, then you can be calm about your future.