Not sure all jobs in software are white collar. Some are blue.

Consider a hierarchy:

- coder: translates requirements into code

- developer: comes up with software to meet specified goals

- engineer: decides what why and how to do, buy vs. build, do this with humans or software, approach and materials ... understands the multi modality stuff of which the outcome is made and deploys it effectively

"Devs" or "Engineers" who are actually "Coders" are at risk, as that work is not really "white collar". Turning requirements into code is piece work on an assembly line, blue collar at a keyboard.

LLMs are already better than most of those, even though it's engineers here who are saying LLMs don't cut it. Both things are true.

What engineers might want to wrap their head around is using LLMs as apprentices, leverage, force multipliers, so a "team lead" is leading a team of junior coders, LLMs that type.

Weirdly, even with automated SWEs, assuming a certain level a skill, SWEs will continue to be a safe job.

Similarly I think SREs will also continue to be a pretty safe bet.

People will still need to play facilitator, debugger, glue, maintainer, upgrader etc

Might look different, might need more AI, but I just can't see a world where people aren't engineering software.

I think this is OK. By extension, the services those knowledge workers provide become trivial costs. World class medical advice doesnt cost $500/hr with a month-long wait. Getting a freeway interchange designed doesn't cost the public $20M and take 5 years. Business logic for large organizations would be handled by something other than a labrynth of excel spreadsheets.