sure, it works like that if you're still the one doing the thinking and figuring out how to do things, and just using agents for the boring templating and to translate your pseudocode into syntax-free real code, without you having to look up the arguments for every call that you haven't used recently, etc.
but most SWEs are being pushed to delegate the _thinking_ to agents.
so instead of "here's a solution to load this page faster that I came up with: X. Implement this in JS", which is along the lines of what you describe, most people are doing "this page needs to load faster, what's the best way to do that?" claude: "X". "OK, implement X." What fun is that? What's the point of developing skills and acquiring knowledge if you can't use them anymore. that's the loss.
If all you care about is having pages that load fast, then yeah, agents are great. If you care about being the architect who figured out how to load pages faster, then agents take the wind out of your sails.
Your example is great because I literally just did this:
"you need to improve performance of the graph especially rollover and highlighting it's VERY Slow there are too many updates"
In the past I would have cracked open a profiler, and spent a couple days probably tuning this thing. I probably would have gotten a big dopamine hit and felt really accomplished when I finally got buttery smooth performance.
But I'm happy to delegate this task to the agent, because this is one step in 1000 steps I have to accomplish, and no I can't just tell the agent to accomplish them all from the start because I don't know where it's going. I'm very very happy I don't have to waste a day making the graph load faster, because I can get back to my real work, which is not making graphs load faster.
At the end of the day, solving that problem will make someone's use of my project a little better, but it's not adding value to anyone's life -- that's what the project is (supposed to be) for. In the past, it was those little problems and 1000s more like them that would derail a large project. Today, they are mere bumps in the road, so the large project has a better chance to come to fruition.
in this context, those are really 2 different things. what people are lamenting is the fact that "I built a career on building these skills because it's something I care about doing with my life, and now I'm being relegated to QA at best, or replaced at worst". That's completely different than, "I can now get my personal project out faster, or maybe create 10 personal projects, and can have the agent take care of the parts of the project I don't really care about doing (like improving graph performance) and focus instead on the overall design of the project, more features, etc.".
It's like going through med school and residency to become a doctor, and instead of practicing medicine, you're feeding prompts into an AI and passing on the responses. Sure, on you might appreciate not having to field medical questions from all your friends and relatives ("personal project"), but that's not your career.
My day job, but I am not a software developer (I'm a teacher), although I was in the past.
I can appreciate that perspective, but at the same time: it's a job, the whole arrangement is you sign away your autonomy, you do what you're told, and people were paid more in one year than I've made in 5 for this. Now the balance has been disrupted, and that's a shame, but the gravy train can't go forever. Moreover, this particular job, software developer, has changed fundamentally again and again over the years, and those changes definitely disrupted people's careers, so although the blast radius is significant, this too shall pass.
And we're not exactly talking about doctor-level of training here, it was only about a dozen years ago that it was very fashionable to land a 6-figure salary at a top Silicon Valley tech firm after having only attended a bootcamp, for a job that was characterized as being a "code monkey". The whole thesis of the "Theil Fellowship" was that the job was doable without any formal education at all. At my institution, the CS major was the most popular because it was the shortest path to the largest salary. Now that equation has changed, no one wants to be a CS major, enrollment is through the floor.
> you're feeding prompts into an AI and passing on the responses.
Okay but is the job writing code or building software? A lot of people seem to think the job was writing code, and that's what they liked about it, but it was always the case that if you like your job it's not going to pay well. That software engineers were paid so well to do something they love is an aberration, not something to expect forever.
As a teacher, I definitely understand this. I love my job, doesn't pay well, and it's also changed fundamentally as well in the last year. So I empathize -- I used to grade student papers which was rewarding; then all of a sudden I was grading LLM output, which is not. A lot of my colleagues have complained endlessly about this, have made it their job to become the LLM "police", or have quit the profession entirely because like you said it's not how they started in this field. It's bleak.
But you can also adapt to the times. We just completed a module where students use AI to create games in Lua, and they made the best games I've seen in years, each one different and unique and fun. Before the class was "we'll spend 4 weeks and hopefully we'll get to animations if we're lucky". Now the final projects are all animated with interesting gameplay mechanics, graphics, animations, and they're all different despite them each using AI. I like this situation better.
but most SWEs are being pushed to delegate the _thinking_ to agents.
so instead of "here's a solution to load this page faster that I came up with: X. Implement this in JS", which is along the lines of what you describe, most people are doing "this page needs to load faster, what's the best way to do that?" claude: "X". "OK, implement X." What fun is that? What's the point of developing skills and acquiring knowledge if you can't use them anymore. that's the loss.
If all you care about is having pages that load fast, then yeah, agents are great. If you care about being the architect who figured out how to load pages faster, then agents take the wind out of your sails.