AI is just the scapegoat; otherwise we should see jobs like administrative assistant, legal, and medical replaced first. But I also think engineering is the worst field to get into. It's neither protected by a license like other white-collar jobs nor by a union like most blue-collar jobs. You end up overworked plus debt from school like white-collar workers but getting paid worse than blue-collar workers. And everyone's okay with that for some reason. Not a single organization is trying to change it. The government is happy with it, companies are obviously loving it, and on top of that, engineers are building the systems to replace them in a few years and they still think they are smart..
Software development is by nature a boom and bust industry, probably most like film. It’s about creative and isosyncratic contractors picking up projects when they are available.
What most people aspiring for a white collar career probably want is a job in IT - managing technology for business is much more stable than developing novel tech.
If the thought of needing to move or lose a job strikes you as horrible, this is not a likely career path for you.
Neither software development nor IT work is engineering work and shouldn't be considered one either. I am talking about engineering jobs, jobs that you went to school for 4-5 years in an engineering discipline, not a few weeks bootcamp or made-up program like computer science only to be called an engineer later, diluting the whole industry in the process. So yeah, software development might be boom and bust, engineering is not.
The first civil engineering degree was minted less than 200 years ago even though we've been building civil infrastructure works for millennia. There were plenty of mishaps along the way for that field too.
The creation of the first digital computer is still within living memory. The state of the software industry and its maturity is doing ok given its youth.
It’s not mandatory, if an employer chose not to care about it, you won’t find any legal issues otherwise in most engineering jobs, that’s not the case in say nursing or legal work. Unless there’s a regulation that requires any engineer should pass certain criteria as seen in other white collar jobs, then it won’t be considered.
