The 2026 Passionate Coder

I love writing software. As a software engineer, I enjoy the whole gamut from stakeholder management, organising, architecting, coding, testing, discussions - the whole SDLC. Generative AI in the big 2026 gives new importance to some parts, like shifting sliders around when making a face in Oblivion. Weighing more importance in some areas compared to before giving software engineering a different look.

For me, I have the sider turned way up for the coding section. This doesn't take away from the other aspects of problem solving, or delivering, but I've found over the years that while coding looks to be logical and structured, I've come to be part of the "code is art" crowd as it's another fun way for me to express creativity.

Side note: I completely understand how fortunate it is that something creatively fulfilling also makes money. Moving into coding early on I used it the same way as Lego by building something larger from smaller pieces for fun.

Generative AI I think puts a dampener on this. I'll state now: Again, I enjoy the whole software engineering process, however this post is just about coding. For personal coding projects, I use genAI on the side like IntelliSense because I enjoy the keystrokes and getting into the weeds. Using genAI here is called AI-assisted coding.

Perhaps the fun part for me is being automated away via agentic coding.

At the end of 2025, using Opus 4.5 was my proper moment of "oh, these are actually getting decent for coding". Though I feel with needing to play the project manager/developer analyst role (in depth) and the non-deterministic nature, it feels like I'm sometimes playing a losing round of Sinkers & Floaters from MXC (shoutout Takeshi's Castle) because of how hit or miss it is:

But sometimes.. It does work out really well - more than I felt it did in earlier 2025 and it feels like this:

It feels like generative AI getting there for coding. For whatever value that means, and I'm not sure what that means for those into coding as it's not just about the problem being solved (such as the end goal in a business) but it's the fun of the journey for me too.

I enjoy making tools for my problems. It's part of this computermancy skill where a problem can be sorted at the click of a button after some furious typing. Coders are intrinsically driven from passion to problem solve. Whereas with genAI simply saying "do this" or "no, do it like that" really upends the mental attitude of getting stuck in (yes, it's still this after proper spec driven genAI development - the 80/20 rule is exacerbated with genAI). Sure, the problem is solved - great, but part of it for me is the journey and applying oneself.

For some, it's never been about the coding. It might be the pure problem solving, the prestige, the money, or other driver; and that's fine. There are software people who hate the coding part and gladly want to be rid of it who may think "well, suck it up. It's the way the world's going". And in a business sense, that's understandable as we're paid to be software engineers, not just coders. But that doesn't mean it's at least a little sad to see coding declining.

I want to call out A programmer's loss of a social identity as a similar post, which in broad strokes, talks on a fast cultural change permeating values and industry like none before, leaving the writer in somewhat of a programming society limbo.

I too feel that. Professionally, generative AI is being adopted by all walks of business in ways the general public don't see. Sure, there's the obvious ones from the giants reporting genAI gains and staff layoffs on quarterly balance sheets, but adoption at various levels is happening at all sizes of business - software specialised or otherwise.

If you don't like generative AI because it represents:

1. The ultimate plagiarism machine
2. Environmental and societal harm
3. Information democracy being whittled to the hands of the few and agenda'd

Then absolutely fair enough. Future consumer use of software will just have to be taken in the same way that "oh the phone I use has unethical metal in it", "damn, it came to light my favourite actor did awful things in the 90's", or "the software I'm using is developed by an exploitive company but is the de facto standard so I must also use it".

For the gripes in this post, us professional software developers ship features (or feature adjacent such as performance). They are paid for those services regardless of opinion and the workplace powers-that-be decide the direction. I feel because of these technological changes, software developers all about coding craft have to let go, reduce expectations, or move to their own projects for fulfilment as traditional workplace tasks are taken by an agent.

Very few are interested in buying a time consuming, hand-made wooden chair when IKEA has cheap, accessible, and perfectly serviceable ones.

At least in the early-mid 2026 state, software developers unhappy with generative AI should busily keep their heads down meeting their job requirements by learning how to best use genAI. It's that, or no job. Look after yourselves and try to be last to be laid off - if trends continue.

Do I see every developer laid off? No. I think there will still need to be AI orchestrators for the transitional time between now and whatever is the long term settled state (again, if trends continue as they are today). It'll be these orchestrators that will/should save us from slop by applying real software engineering practices.

But large teams of developers seem less and less needed, and that's happening today.

Perhaps there should be a recompense, UBI, humanity-based legislation, or something else as soon enough on this trend: fewer will have jobs, perhaps unrest, and who remains to spend for the economy to turn?

Only after nearly finishing this post did I notice MXC, or Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, is an uncanny parallel to the current industry layoffs 💀