Until a few years ago, I was too adamant to become a software engineer. What I mean by that is getting a job at a company that would pay me bare minimum. Since I don't have any formal computer science related degrees or diplomas, it was hard for me to get my foot in the door. But I tried, and I came close a few times.
I'm not a software engineer now. At least not by profession. And I'm glad I didn't go down that road. But there's hardly a day that goes by when I'm not building something or tinkering with code.
Ever since I can remember, I've been coding, engineer or not. And I like doing it, maybe more than most people in software engineering jobs, because I'm not being forced to. If I were being told to hit deadlines, I probably wouldn't have liked the experience. I code as a way to express myself, just like people write or journal.
In this economy, people who studied at reputed institutions are losing jobs, because AI "ate" them. Back when I was trying to break in, I thought a CS degree was the ticket. A BA just wasn't enough to get interview calls. So I regretted not having that credential. But now? Even people with those fancy degrees are getting displaced. So I'm actually glad I didn't go down that road, because that degree wouldn't have protected me anyway.
Whether AI is a better programmer or not is debatable. But at this point, AI needs to displace some jobs to justify its inflated market valuation. And yes, for entry-level programming work, AI is already better.
For me, I will keep coding till the end of time. Maybe I won't be a 'software engineer,' but I'll be a coder forever.