Yesterday I stumbled across a question on the internet that subtly posited that software engineers intentionally write poor code because if we write the perfect code we'd be out of jobs. To the average Joe it seems reasonable, afterall you'd think the same way if your mechanic or doctor couldn't fix your problem in a "once and done" fashion.

The difference is that software engineering is a rapidly evolving field, all that innovation you get in technology is powered by technologies and architecture that changes every year, there's no such thing as a perfect code when you take into consideration the fact that whatever is written today can be obselete by the end of the year.

Government regulations, client changes in demand and the rapid growth of the tech sector will alway necessitate the need for software engineers, software engineering demand will only decline if you can somehow stagnate government regulations, client demands and the growth of the tech sector. That's not a fun world for anybody.

You'll also need to factor the growth of the hacking industry, in order to protect the code base of companies you'll need people who can keep up. There's so much talk about artificial intelligence automating the jobs of software engineers, just like 3D printing the promises are out there, it hasn't manifested yet and I have good reason to believe that such a solution won't be mainstream.

If you want to code you should really get started, there's almost no job that's immune to disruption, software engineering however is one of the hardest jobs to automate.