‘It’s going to be painful for a lot of people’: Software engineers could go extinct this year, says Claude Code creator

Amjad Cherny, the creator of Anthropic's Claude Code, has made a bold prediction on Lenny's Podcast: the traditional role of the software engineer is headed for extinction by the end of 2024. Cherny, who developed the AI coding assistant within Anthropic's Bell Labs-style experimental division, argues that the title will be replaced by 'builder' as AI takes over the actual code generation. He speaks from direct experience, revealing that Claude Code has written 100% of his code for months, and he hasn't manually edited a single line since November 2023. This shift, he warns, 'is going to be painful for a lot of people' as the industry's foundational job description transforms.

While advocating for this AI-first future, Cherny emphasizes that human oversight remains critical. He still meticulously checks all AI-generated code for correctness and safety, especially for programs used by many people, stating we're not yet at a point of being 'totally hands-off.' The tool, initially a side project, saw rapid internal adoption at Anthropic before its public release. Cherny predicts this pattern will replicate across the industry, with many other companies and individual coders having AI write all their code by year's end. This forecast suggests a massive, imminent restructuring of tech roles, elevating product management and architectural thinking while automating the act of writing lines of code.