From coding to cultivation? Fears of working in artificial intelligence prompt software engineer to consider agriculture as an alternative career

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) is forcing some tech professionals to reassess their career prospects, with one software engineer considering a switch from coding to farming amid concerns about the future of employment.

The engineer, who said he has nearly 10 years of experience in the field, shared his concerns in a post on the Reddit community r/ClaudeCode. He said keeping up with advances in AI had become exhausting and questioned whether conventional technologies would remain widely available over the next five to 10 years.

“We’re living in absolutely crazy times and we’re all trying to keep up, but honestly I don’t even know if we can anymore. Everything is moving faster than the human brain can process. For the first time in my life, I’m seriously considering getting into farming or growing my own food. I honestly feel there won’t be many real jobs left in 5-10 years,” he wrote.

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His comments reflect concerns among some tech workers about the extent to which increasingly capable AI systems could automate tasks that have traditionally required specialized training and expertise.

Why a software engineer is questioning his future in technology

The engineer said his assessment of AI has changed considerably over the past year. He previously believed that although artificial intelligence could generate code, experienced software engineers would remain necessary to design systems and manage complex projects.

They now believe that AI tools are increasingly able to take on these responsibilities and sometimes deliver better results than human professionals.

This shift left him questioning the long-term value of developing websites, creating games, and launching software-as-a-service (SaaS) products with expanding AI capabilities.

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“He can design systems now. And in many cases he does a better job than us. Sometimes I feel like we’re actively building a thing that will make us obsolete. I’m just tired,” he added.

His reflections on farming or growing one’s own food illustrate how concerns about technological disruption can extend beyond questions of retraining and productivity to broader decisions about career stability and self-sufficiency.

However, his post reflects an individual’s concern about the future of employment rather than evidence that tech jobs will disappear in the time frame he cited.

Reddit users are debating how workers should respond to AI

The post sparked a debate among Reddit users about whether professionals should adapt to AI, rethink the role of employment, or recognize the continued importance of human oversight.

One user asked if the existing job structure itself needed to be re-evaluated.

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“Statistically, most people are not good at what they do. Maybe the solution is to rethink the whole job.”

“What if the people who embrace it and run with it survive? That’s the way forward as I see it. Grab it with both hands and run with it. If it turns out to eat up everyone’s work, then it didn’t matter in the long run. If not? You made the right call. I don’t see any way it’s going to go away,” another user commented.

A third Reddit user argued that even highly capable AI systems may not eliminate the need for human involvement, especially in situations where mistakes could have serious consequences.

“If job loss is your concern, the trick is to play on human irrationality. Think about airplanes. We’ve had autopilots that can fly autonomously for decades and are arguably better than humans. Yet we still require two people to sit in the cockpit and ‘fly’. Why? Because when the stakes are high, people want it warm.