It has been only one day since I first used Claude Code, and I'm convinced that software engineering as I knew it is dead.
8:00 PM, Aug 21, 2025
I started using Claude Code a day ago. I had not touched any form of LLMs, at least not knowingly, for the last two years. This self imposed exile luckily allowed me to approach Claude Code with a beginner's mind.
I have been in a daze the entire day. Software engineering, the way I had done it for the last two decades, is dead.
The new thing is both easier and more difficult. It is easier than ever for people who are not interested in how computers work to make computers do their bidding. But professional software engineering will become even more mentally demanding.
The closest analogy I can think of in my current daze is to when high level programming languages came along. They enabled both more people to program while simultaneously making it harder (but more fun!) for professionals.
The speed gains for doing a single task will be overshadowed by the expectation that you do more of them. You need to engineer ways to handle an army of autonomous agents without letting complexity get out of hand.
I think most experienced software engineers will have a hard time adjusting to this new reality, because they are either not approaching LLMs, or approaching LLMs of today as if they were LLMs of yesterday, or they are bringing too much of their old hard earned lessons to the table.
I feel that people just starting with computers have an advantage, because they are approaching LLMs with a beginner's mind.