[rsalus]

I don't know, even if AI allows two engineers to do the work of six, companies will likely just use that efficiency to expand their scope. I think we'll see short-term layoffs and a more stratified engineering field during the transition, but the fundamental need for deep technical expertise isn't going away.

[coldtea]

>I don't know, even if AI allows two engineers to do the work of six, companies will likely just use that efficiency to expand their scope.

Not really. It will be a cuttthroat landscape, and the scope wont matter as much anymore. First because everyone else will equally be able to throw LLMs at the scope, but also because the scope has natural limits: your market fit, customer expectations, and (for software/hw products) physical world/manufacturing limitations.

They'll want to reduce their margins.

[rsalus]

AI usage will directly impact said margins. Moreover, for the scenario you describe, companies need to have the capability to precisely estimate the cost of a given deliverable - not something possible with current tooling + models. You're also underestimating the market trend towards vertical integration: companies are not going to be constrained by a sector or niche. They will expand to capture as much value as they can, because now their capacity to do so is partially decoupled from labor.

It will certainly be a cutthroat landscape for engineers, but companies will be building _more_ capacity, not less. In other words, the demand won't disappear for skilled technical labor, it will just move higher up the value chain.

[coldtea]

>You're also underestimating the market trend towards vertical integration: companies are not going to be constrained by a sector or niche. They will expand to capture as much value as they can, because now their capacity to do so is partially decoupled from labor.

They will still totally be, because the capacity to do so was never coupled to labor, it was coupled to domain knowledge, client network, other players dominating the market, and so on...

[insane_dreamer]

> even if AI allows two engineers to do the work of six, companies will likely just use that efficiency to expand their scope.

1) they won't, they'll just cut costs

or

2) they will, but unless it's a new scope or one that can absorb growth, they'll just be competing with other companies in the space and taking away business from them

either way, labor loses

[pjmlp]

No, my life experience tells me those companies will fire the ones they no longer need instead.