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Truth-is-available@reddit

Hey! I work in the pharmaceutical world in QC Labs. In my opinion AI has not yet threatened the entire IT industry yet. I actually see this to be the case for most companies. A lot of mid-size to small companies actually are like 10 years behind when it comes to IT topics and we desperately need ppl to fill the gaps so that we have the infrastructure to utilize AI in the future.

On the flip side, yeah huge IT companies like Amazon, Facebook, Oracle and the likes are laying off IT people like crazy.

From my vantage point, IT jobs are not at risk in small to mid-size companies and they desperately need good solid workers. Pay is not like working for Amazon though. I think the age of coders by default having a crazy high salary with a nice cushion job in a top tech company is probably coming to an end, but plenty of nice $80 - 100k roles available in small to mid-size companies.

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Wizard6456@reddit (OP)

I was actually thinking about that. Thank you for the advice

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azz_kikkr@reddit

you're 17.. relax.

there's people with years of experience and without jobs. you're talking about risks others are living while they have responsibilities. At 17 you're still a dependent.

right now.. just stay curious and learn.. and build. That's what will get you ahead.

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nog642@reddit

They have like a year or two until they need to pick a major. Telling them their problems are not a big deal is not helpful.

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spinwizard69@reddit

Actually this kids problems are not a big deal, and he is way over thinking this. When I was in school, the first few "programming" classes where crowded, by the third year the college filled seats with student from community colleges. One of the goals of a college student is to actually figure out what they want out of life. Many programs had high drop out rates due to a number of issues, in any event it is better for a student to figure this out in college.

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nog642@reddit

Many programs require you to decide when applying. And even those that don't, you need to decide within like a year. Switching majors has major downsides, it's not bad to think about it early.

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spinwizard69@reddit

Sure one should think about it, but again the kid is 17, there is no reason to get all twisted up over not knowing. I've literally have known people that joined the NAVY simply because they didn't want to commit immediately to any one career. The fact that the NAVY does educate its members is another big factor.

Beyond that having to decide on an educational path isn't in itself a bad thing. What is bad is leaving college believing that what you studied is the only thing you are good for.

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nog642@reddit

Right... joining the military is another option. In the choice they will have to make in a year or two.

They're 17. Not 14. They should be thinking about this and being worried about it is reasonable, though of course not ideal.

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azz_kikkr@reddit

Yep. That is true picking a major pales in comparison to real life problems.

Millions picked computer science as their major.. with confidence. They're now job less and looking at entry level help desk roles as computer majors.

There's people with mortgages, and health issues, dependants like kids and aging parents..they've been laid off mid carier. I would argue a student with no responsibilities will always get "your problems are not a big deal" coz they aren't.

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Hayyner@reddit

I think the condition of the market for adults already well along their career paths is actually a very good reason for OP to be concerned and asking these kinds of questions. They might be young, but they are clearly invested in their future. I can't say the same for myself at 17 🤷🏿

This is a weird thing to gatekeep. OP will be an adult eventually, are they just supposed to wait until they graduate to figure out their path??

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spinwizard69@reddit

No body know what the job market will be like in 5 year. The demand for programmers will likely expand once AI starts to pump the economy. Beyond that get a proper education and many corporations will not care much what that degree is in. You are basically free to apply for anything job wise that don't require specific skills.

Beyond that there seems to be this idea that once you get a degree you don't have anywhere options. I've know guys that started out owning an auto repair garage to becoming chief of police. Others left long corporate careers to run a floral shop, another left an engineering job to get into animation on the other side of the country. This idea that getting fired as a programmer ends your productive life is nonsense, adapt and move forward.

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Hayyner@reddit

I agree with all that you've said, but I think transitioning is not as easy as you make it sound. Even if you're well prepared and diligent, get your education, do internships, study, etc, just starting your career can be really difficult for some. And many people would prefer to make their living doing something they are at least somewhat passionate about.

You make it sound trivial, but for many, the pop of the tech bubble is the end of a dream. Still, you're right. Life will never wait for you to get your shit together, it is best to think about backups plans and be flexible in life.

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spinwizard69@reddit

One of the things I was surprised by, when I started my college career (later than normal), was how many students either couldn't cut their program or realized it wasn't for them. It is better to change early before putting in 3 years of education. I just want a 17 year old to know that people do change their minds all the time as to career directions. One couple did a mid life change by leaving very good jobs to open a bar / restaurant in the mountains 250 miles away. I've seen so many examples in my 65 years that at this point I really don't understand why a 17 year old is getting twisted up over nothing.

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Travaches@reddit

Simple. Don’t choose major. You can still graduate with no focus with general diploma.

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nog642@reddit

That is one of the options. And arguably not a good one. They still need to make the choice relatively soon.

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HowardBateman@reddit

While you're absolutely right, don't just tell people to relax if they're genuinely worried. It won't work and just make them angry. And rightfully so. When I am worried or anxious, I won't "calm down" just because someone objectively wiser than me tells me to.

Yes, he has time. Yes, he's still young. But his worries are correct. The market is changing rapidly. Juniors devs are having a really hard time finding a job worldwide right now, because they're basically obsolete. Take 1 intermediate dev, hand him Claude and you replace 10 juniors.

My advice to OP is that if you really love coding, do it anyways. Code in your free time if you really want to write code by hand and just roll with the market for your job and use AI like everyone else right now. You're still developing and engineering, you're just not coding anymore. Still solving problems, still developing solutions, still engineering systems. No manual code.

It's like a new, extremely powerful framework. Just roll with it. It's fun on its own. It's not just "prompting until it works" like some old farts that have a stick up their ass are telling you.

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Successful-Escape-74@reddit

Don't go to college for a job. Attend college for an education. If you are good at math go ahead major in math. Get a Phd in mathematics. Math majors have plenty of options from Actuary science, Quantitative Finance, Programming, Machine Learning, Stats, Prediction algorithms math majors can do anything! Good place to start if you are unsure.

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Truth-is-available@reddit

I'm sorry, but this sounds like the path to being a Phd who works at McDonald's.

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Successful-Escape-74@reddit

It's the path to a PhD that works at a hedge fund or creates LLMs for companies or makes bank at an insurance company by passing the Actuarial exams, or Works at the federal government, for Corps of Engineers, NSA, CIA, Army, Air Force, Navy, FBI, or NASA.

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babayaga1363@reddit

Accounting is the better pick, even with the ai issue taken into account. Especially if you get your CPA. From what I understand entry-level is really bad rn for CS related jobs, even more so than entry-level jobs in any field.

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tenkitron@reddit

I’ve worked in this field for a decade, and to the people that look at AI as “now non technical people can be software engineers!” Think of this way: writing code has always been the easiest part of the job. The other 90% of the job is thinking through problems, breaking them into their components, testing for what works and what doesn’t, finding and sanding down edge cases, figuring out performance implications, domain modeling, etc etc etc. it is a tough job in the best of times, AI is a helpful assistant but not a replacement for engineers.

For the most part what AI does is take the easiest part of the job (writing code) and makes it easier. What it also does is makes the harder part of the job (reasoning through decisions and scaling them) way, way harder. Engineers aren’t going anywhere, and neither are analysts, and if you want to get into this career, the demand will be there. We need smart people like you more than we need coding assistants.

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Stunning_Owl_9167@reddit

How has writing the code “always” been the easiest part? Translating the solutions to code can be incredibly difficult at times.

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tenkitron@reddit

Ok, I’ll concede that, if the struggle point is translation, then that’s usually a weakness of the abstraction. An obvious example of this would be trying to write assembly directly where the spec is directed by the CPU architecture which doesn’t have a very direct analogue to anything outside of how the machine itself operates. Another might be raw JavaScript where, because its spec is massive and highly specific to JS itself, it’s very easy to shoot yourself in the foot by uncovering some behavior deep within the spec you weren’t aware of.

But in the professional space most mature high level languages have abstractions that are perfectly suited to accommodate translation without much trouble at all. Domain modeling constructs (like those in OOP), high level math libraries, polymorphism, higher order functions, interfaces, classes, objects, data structures, etc. all of these tools are very useful for quickly going from concept to actual code. The hard part is deconstructing a domain into something that can be coded, not the code itself.

A disciplined approach to this is utilizing TDD to go from requirements as just raw spoken language into tests and then into code. It does add time and it can be tedious, but it gives you a through line from concept to code that’s testable and self documenting. In my experience with TDD, the hard part was never writing the code, it was having the discipline to spec out everything before any code gets written.

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Stunning_Owl_9167@reddit

I totally agree with you on the abstraction stuff. And I understand that higher level languages like c/c++ have some useful abstractions that we can take advantage of, but even with those things you mentioned, it’s still going to be challenging from time to time. For example, if I sat there and told you to write a compiler from scratch, it’d be hard to translate the idea into code right? You’d have to understand the various abstractions which goes back to what you said. But even if you write the code and it works, you have all those other things on your mind like; is this code readable, are my variable names nice, is the code structured nicely, is this the correct data structure or should i use another data structure to represent this piece of information or to perform this task.

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tenkitron@reddit

All fair points, but I’d still say clean code is a byproduct of how you break down your domain model before you write any code at all. a vague interpretation of a domain problem that results in just freestyling your way into a working application can work for prototypes, but real world applications that are written like that don’t scale well.

The point I’m getting across is that good engineers spend a lot more time thinking through plans and making specs and tests than they do just writing lines of code, because it addresses the spaghetti and future proofs the structure before any machinery is put in place. It’s not perfect, but it scales better than winging it.

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LongjumpingWheel11@reddit

I just don’t agree with this sentiment at all. I fought this idea for a very long time because ofc I don’t want to believe that my job and career are at risk but this idea you are proposing is far too simplistic. Most of Junior and Mid level engineers’ jobs were writing code. They weren’t thinking of performance implications or domain modeling. The argument you are making is for Senior engineers and yes that stands, those won’t be replaced but that doesn’t sustain an industry. It’s like saying oh well we still need COBOL engineers. Yeah but the pipeline is dead.

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spinwizard69@reddit

First off you are the captain of your own ship. You don't work till 30, anyplace you don't want to work. The way you state this and the general tone of your post tells me you need to put in serous work on self esteem.

If you like to code then get a real CS degree from a respectable university. YOU have no idea what the job market will be in 5 years and frankly nobody else on the planet knows. You can cover your ass so to speak by pursuing a minor at the same time. If programming is easy for you this will not add much stress. The idea of a minor is that it can increase your chances of grabbing a job in a sector that interests you.

Now if you are concerned about the impact of AI, it will not eliminate the need for programmers, there will be a negative dive in positions initially but economic expansion will deal with that. Why do I say this: it is pretty easy, executives are either way to busy managing a company or they are too stupid to even allow in front of a computer. Somebody will still be needed to build those AI based apps.

As for accounting, you got it right: "But the job seems super boring,". Frankly as a high school senior I'm not sure why you haven't explored all the possible jobs out there and the niches with in. For example there is really opportunities in factory automation and robotics for programmers, which many find more engaging and less boring. (all forms of coding have their boring times so don't think programming solves that problem) In some locations that type of programming requires an engineering license, so you need to consider that. Also a minor in electrical engineering helps too. The point is even as a programmer there are dozens of niches one can fill.

Then there is another reality, people often leave college and use their training for a short period of time and then realize that they don't want to be doing that! This is why you find all sorts of personalities in business in jobs where their official degree doesn't match the job. Some people actually end up have multiple careers in a lifetime, a decent program at a college prepares you to succeed in life. It is far better to be happy in your position than to work in something that wears at your personality to the point you become a cornered animal. I knew one guy that had several careers, including as a machine builder, as a boat builder and something else that leaves my mind at the moment. Don't get hung up on the idea you have to be something or that you need to make somebody else happy. You only real goal should be to support your self and family in a respectful way.

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empirous@reddit

I know this might not be completely related to your question, but zooming out a little bit. AI as I currently understand it is really good at repeating/regurgitating things that have already been done before. It learns from preexisting patterns that it gets in large aggregates of data. It can't really create anything truly new and unique. THAT'S what engineers do. The skill that will be greatest and most valuable moving forward into the future is the ability to learn and create and experiment in domains that haven't been explored yet. AI simply can't do stuff like build things from system requirements, make decisions between trade-off studies, etc.

Engineering is just one example of this, but any field you enjoy where you are able to learn stuff fast, or quickly accumulate skills no one else has, is always going to be extremely valuable. Some books I really liked and helped me in my career that I recommend are "So Good They Can't Ignore You" and "Deep Work" by Cal Newport, and "Ultralearning" by Scott Young. They dive a lot deeper into what this looks like and how you can "posture" yourself to succeed regardless of the path you choose to take. They should all be available to read for free at your local library.

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Numerous-Park4183@reddit

Mano tenta fazer uma faculdade de T.i ou programação mesmo e bem lucrativo e rentável

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bubaji00@reddit

u need to go college, but approach it differently. spending 4 years in library grinding and getting 4.0 isn't going to work anymore. go out there and make as much connection as u can and exploit ur student identity to talk to as many professor, industry professionals as u can and u will find a lot of opportunities

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JamPocho@reddit

Me parece muy curioso que estés en una situación muy similar a la que estuve yo hace unos 6 años, cuando acababa bachillerato. Antes de terminar la escuela estaba entre estudiar ingeniería en sistemas y estudiar contabilidad, al final tome contabilidad por la idea de que en mi país sería más buscado y me sería más fácil encontrar trabajo en comparación de ingeniero en sistemas.

Hoy en día, una vez graduado como profesión de contador público, siento un poco de arrepentimiento de haber tomado esa decisión. Me gustaría haber estudiado ingeniera en sistemas, porque aún con el tiempo sigo manteniendo el interés por esa carrera, en cambio ya estoy aburrido de la contabilidad y no me interesa hacer posgrado.

Actualmente tengo trabajo como contador, después de todo necesito comer, y estoy empezando a aprender programación porque siento que es lo que me gustaría hacer en lugar de llevar contabilidad.

Mi moraleja, que estoy seguro ya lo debes haber escuchado muchas veces, es que hagas lo que quieras hacer el resto de tu vida, piensa en que te gustaría hacer durante todos los años laborales que tienes hasta jubilarte. Vivo ese consejo actualmente, debi ser más decidido en ese tiempo, aún así no he abandonado esas ganas de ir a programación y estoy avanzando de forma autodidacta.

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lumberjack_dad@reddit

You are very smart to be so forward thinking. CS is the most vulnerable of the engineering fields so pivoting your focus to Civil or Electrical or Mechanical is a great idea as they more resilient to AI.

I have started wrapping up my CS career of 25+ years so I am not on that next wave of layoffs, and go into teaching. My son initially was CS but his roommates convinced him to go into Civil Engineering and he couldn't be happier.

Anecdotal I know, and it hurt when he decided on non-CS but probably best for his job prospects. There will still be CS positions but gone are the days where you just had to "okay" to secure a job in the industry.

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wushywushy@reddit

wheres your evidence that every job is being taken by AI .. is that the headlines you're reading, or do you have actual examples.

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academicRedditor@reddit

Become a nurse

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Wizard6456@reddit (OP)

Said I don’t like science or medical stuff

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academicRedditor@reddit

Oh I see. Whatever you do, don't follow your passion. Take it with you, and follow "opportunity" instead

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skylarlove0@reddit

You can compare how hard you want your life to be. It can be hard studying science temporarily to land you somewhere, or be hard for the rest of your life at some mid job. I like to think of it like that where if I didn’t take some hard science, I’d still be complaining about my hw in some business class. And frankly the science classes at the low levels they require (biology I) is not much different than high school. There just more expectations for responsibility but the work is roughly the same.

It’s nice all the stable people in the subreddit are having a good time, but tech is super unstable for entry level right now. I’m assuming your skills and passion are very high, not just regular interest. You can absolutely do well still, even if you don’t go to college. However if in case something ever does happen, I truly do recommend college if you have the means to do so. It provides a good place to make friends, by extension networks. It gives a grace period for you to figure yourself out, we already have to work our whole lives anyways. Bachelor degree requirements are seen so commonly in applications. It’s so common people say a masters is the new bachelors. Hell sometimes people just like to know you have one regardless of if the field matches. And it gives you leverage to negotiate salary over those who didn’t get one. It could be the difference of thousands and thousands of dollars.

I want to be clear, college is not necessary. However we should not ignore the very common benefits obtained from it.

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konocheez@reddit

Do cognitive science/psychology adjacent? Great for CS and critical thinking?

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KosmoanutOfficial@reddit

I might recommend checking out a local center to see if you can get free/cheap classes and see if they can help you get an internship somewhere to see if you like IT. I found tech centers to have the best connections for internships, better than all the other schools I went to and job fairs.

That was good for me to get exposed to different paths and just get going while self studying. They usually count as college credits so I was in a similar situation not wanting to go to college but it ended up that my same teachers taught at the university and I had credits transfer so ended up doing it.

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Express-Channel-1686@reddit

CS in 2026 is legitimately harder to break into than it was a few years ago. that's real and you're not wrong to notice it.

but 17 with two months till college is actually the best time to start worrying — because you have time to build things before you graduate. one project this summer that you actually want to exist matters way more than your GPA when you're job hunting.

you're not behind. you're early

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HexspaReloaded@reddit

McDonald’s can be a great job actually. Or even Taco BellBell GMs are always happy.

I can’t tell you anything about programming, but I can tell you one thing AI can never replace: your creative spirit.

In all this talk about your career, don’t forget to protect your heart and happiness. From what I’ve seen, they will haunt you until you feed them.

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zereck1056@reddit

If you decide to continue with tech. Don't get a CS degree.

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dyslechtchitect@reddit

Most people are pessimistic about the future of CS/SE, but counter intuitively it’s actually bright.

AI doing most of the coding is more of a barrier than a boost for beginners. A lot of people won’t put in the work to really understand code, concepts, and architecture. So if you’re serious about software, go for it - we’re at the start of a golden age. But yeah just being a “code monkey” won’t cut it anymore.

The future is strong for people who are hardworking, creative, and sharp. A full CS degree isn’t always necessary focus on fundamentals like DSA, system design, history of computing, and AI, and keep your education broad.

Start early with internships - being a uni student opens doors - use that to your advantage, get close to research, interesting cutting edge projects, use this time to indulge your interest in tech.
Regardless, whatever you’ll be doing for a living in 10-20 years probably won’t look like anything we can fully predict today, so follow your interests an intuitions and try not to make choices out of fear of what's about to be replaced by AI, that's for the old folks to worry about.

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Slow-Ad-241@reddit

cs degree still opens doors even if you can self-teach, the signaling and networking matter more than the content tbh

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nagmamantikang_bayag@reddit

In contrast, as a Senior Developer, I never needed an accountant to do my taxes. Been doing it on my own for at least a decade.

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DutyCompetitive1328@reddit

I understand why you think that. The good news is, that no industry is really fucked. Laying off staff and replacing them with AI has gone so badly they had to rehire everyone. Learning how to code is an valuable skill which is payed well even if you haven’t a degree. I don’t have a degree in cs, learned writing code and build system for fun. Now I have a job which pays well as software engineer without having even seen a colleague from the inside.

Just go for it and don’t give up because it doesn’t work on first try. The people who get lucky the most are those who kept trying no matter what.

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Unfair_Canary_6005@reddit

Nice typo ;-)

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DutyCompetitive1328@reddit

😂😂 won’t correct that one

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Elevance_Skills@reddit

You’re not alone a lot of people feel this way at your stage. It’s normal to be confused when you’re making a big decision about your future.

AI is changing things, but it’s not replacing people who can think and solve problems. If anything, people who understand tech and know how to use AI will have more opportunities.

You said you like coding that matters. Interest is what keeps you going long enough to actually get good, and that’s what leads to better opportunities.

Also, this isn’t a one-time decision. You can change direction later or even combine fields like coding and finance.

Instead of worrying about everything, focus on the next few months. Build projects, explore, and see what you actually enjoy.

You’re 17. You’re early, not behind.

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rafaover@reddit

Don't stress too much, but keep your mind open because the world is changing. You need CS knowledge, you but going to need to be creative and develop management skills.

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Zesher_@reddit

Landing a computer science job isn't as easy as it uses to be, but it's not impossible. The reality is that most professions are hard to break in to, and that's always been the norm. My parents kept trying to discourage me from going into CS because they witnessed the dot com burst, but I kept going with it because it's what I wanted to do.

You're going to spend most of your life doing something. Do something that excites you, motivates you, makes you want to keep going and pushing. If you think CS is that, then it's definitely worth pursuing, even if it looks a bit gloomy at the moment.

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Chicharoh@reddit

You’re 17, worrying so much won’t do you good in the long term, focus on improving yourself as a person. Meet people and girls I assume you’re a straight guy. I wouldn’t say every job will be taken up by AI but yeah you’re partly right. I wouldn’t say every focus on a passion if I was your age, not necessarily finding THE job

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BrannyBee@reddit

Even people that research LLMs aren't even sure if the ceiling to their ability is high enough to make it worth putting all of our eggs in that basket...

That's not even an anti-AI take, it's the opposite, if anything preaching that LLMs are the end all be all of computer science over just pulls away from researching different approaches to AI that could very well allow us to make non deterministic tools or something that can genuinely feel creativity. This entire career is about using tools to solve problems, coding is like 10% of a programmers job and its not the hard part, and there's time when the answer to a problem is "dont write code".

If LLMs can replace you, then you didn't become an engineer, thats literally not what they're designed to do. Don't take this personally, but you have no idea what AI is capable, and in some ways it's possible its even MORE capable than what you can possibly know. The thing is, you aren't going to take my job because it requires knowing how to program, and if tomorrow the tools get better... you still arent going to take my job because I can communicate with the tools better than you can.

I had to work Craigslist jobs to survive and would have loved a little stability working at McDonalds when I learned how to code while living in my car. You can't tell me that if a new tool gets released tomorrow that you will be able to catch up to people like me who also have that same tool if you're more worried about having to work a little hard, others are willing to put in the work, thats the point of learning a skill.

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bootyhole_licker69@reddit

cs degree + actually building stuff on the side is still fine, ai isn’t magic, companies still need people who can solve real problems and talk to humans. pick what you can stick with, not what feels safest. finding work is just rough now in general though

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United-Molasses-9826@reddit

Your concerns are valid but you might be overthinking this AI thing a bit. Yes AI is changing things but its not like every programming job will disappear tomorrow or even in next 10 years. The industry adapts and new roles emerge as technology evolves.

Being good at math and enjoying coding is actually great combination for many fields beyond just traditional programming. Data analysis like you mentioned is growing field and even with AI tools you still need people who understand the business context and can interpret results properly. Machine learning engineers are also in high demand precisely because of all this AI development.

I work in IT support now and see how companies struggle to implement even basic automation correctly. They still need humans who understand both the technical side and business requirements. Maybe consider getting CS degree anyway since you enjoy coding - the foundational knowledge you get in university is different from self-learning and opens more doors for internships and entry level positions.

Also remember that even if some tasks get automated the people who understand how to work WITH these AI tools will be the ones who stay relevant. Don't let fear of future changes stop you from pursuing what you actually enjoy doing.