> I think 80% of a SWE's job is to communicate with the XFN partners (either gathering requirements, pushing back, managing up, collaborations, etc) and then plan out the actual coding (gather code pointers, look at past code, plan architecture, talk to the team). The last 10% is the coding. And then the other 10% is the maintenance of that and past code (which honestly should be a lot more but incentives are not aligned well).

That last 10% is the value-add. If you aren't doing that, the other 90% can be done by pretty much anyone, and they won't be "SWE", they'd be minimum-paid white-collar workers.

A lot of people miss this in their haste to rationalise their evaporating value - "I'm still useful, because AI is only doing that 10%, I am still needed for the other 90%", not realising that if they aren't needed for that last 10%, they are interchangeable with the office receptionist :-/