As AI Takes Over Coding, Engineers Debate Whether the Job Grows or Shrinks

A February 2026 report from the San Francisco Standard looks at how AI coding tools are unsettling software engineering. It describes a profession where engineers at leading AI labs say the tools now write all of their code, some developers feel like a go-between for the machine, and one admits to understanding only about half of what he ships. The numbers add pressure: new-graduate hiring at the 15 largest US tech companies has fallen 55% since 2019, according to the venture firm SignalFire, and undergraduate computer science enrollment in the University of California system dropped in both 2024 and 2025. The piece frames the debate through two analogies. Optimists point to compilers, which made programmers more productive and grew the industry, while pessimists point to tractors, which displaced farmers. It does not pick a side, and it closes by arguing that the outcome depends on choices being made now.