Still going strong after 45+ years of programming, still getting new clients.
Software "testers" are the low people on the totem pole, testers are people who failed at programming.
Sounds like you have a "monolithic software applications essential for business continuity that can't be replaced because niche use cases exist for the businesses that use them that are locked in on fixed term contracts," and more power to you, (seriously).
I'm also not a Software Tester, although I do have a software engineering degree I've never really thought of myself as a software engineer.
I'm a Test Engineer who has been doing software testing for 20 years.
It's been a wild ride where I may not have made a lot of money, but I always had and always will have my freedom, family and health - and in hindsight, I know for me that was the right choice.
I'd hate to be in my 40's 50's or 60's divorced, sick, have no kids, or my wife and kids being miserable and hating me - but with a lot of money - like my brother and father, both of whom were/are Petroleum engineers.
Oddly enough all the best Software Engineers I've met have ended up in similar situations.
Incidentally, here's a recent article written by a buddy of mine who is a Developer/Programmer about the same age as me, one of the best software engineers I've ever met.
The End of Software Engineers
...and a lot of other jobs
Jan 31, 2025
The first symptoms that something was up was the realization that I had been earning the same money for the last decade. I used to feel rich.
With no raise, 10% inflation over 10 years means your income buys 50% as much as it used to. And if you didn’t know - the measurement for inflation excludes a lot of things we actually buy and need.
Local Distortions - Interest Rates
I believe it all started with Interest Rates going towards 0% to encourage growth. This in turn caused all software companies to borrow to expand.
Within the Big Tech world, companies were competing to hire the best developers so nothing was left for the competition.
This lavish lifestyle of benefits caught the public’s attention. YouTubers chronicled their days with relaxed starts to the day, endless coffee breaks, free bananas and free laundry services.
This hyper attractive lifestyle of seemingly doing little work and reaping the rewards drew a lot of interest and applications. Generations of youth have been setting their sights on getting into the field due to all these influencers.
Local Distortions - DEI
Along with the ridiculous pools of cash Big Tech companies have, there is a force of DEI driving change. Suddenly the best “man” for the job disappeared and now sexual preference and skin color put you to the top of the list.
Swarms of people looking for a fast track into a lucrative career emerged.
Interestingly enough - since the new Administration took place, the DEI button in LinkedIn mysteriously disappeared.
Global Distortions - H-1B Visas
Outside of local talent flocking from those back breaking blue collard jobs to the perk filled tech bro lifestyle -
International visas are a thing, drawing international candidates in from around the world.
So to add fuel to the fire you now have a Global influx of candidates.
Recent conversation have been around specifically biasing the choice to just Indians. Because they “work harder for less money”.
Global Distortions - AI
Now layer into the mix, AI. This is the biggest threat of all. AI is an absolute monster for ability. It can do everything very well. And any current pain points will soon to be ironed out.
Check out these two recent interviews that I saw with great thinkers and business builders.
The Writing is on the Wall
If you work in Software - I believe you need to take action right away and either move up the corporate ladder into a decision maker or hyper-specialize in an in-demand sub set of technology.
I would expect that decision makers would be one of the last professions to be replaced by AI.
Stay observant and agile.
I disagreed with him on one point, which is that while AI may make developers (i.e. - Software Engineers) obsolete, it makes Test Engineers extremely important.
The emerging field in Tech is Prompt Engineering, which is the profession of conversationally engaging with and training LLM AI systems to produce accurate non-deterministic output... which parallels almost perfectly with Test Engineering.
Programming in the pre-AI era is the process of automating the thinking processes of people with extremely low social and emotional intelligence but extremely high rational, logical and mathematical intelligence by producing computational code free from logical defects.
AI is the pinnacle of automating that process to the point that rational human intelligence is no longer needed as input to produce that code, but to get that code to perform something useful emotional and social intelligence is needed to collaborate with the AI systems to produce something of actual value.
This is why Software Engineering, according to my software engineering friend, is going extinct.
