In a market, scarce services will always be more valuable than abundant services.
Assuming that AI will at some point be capable of replacing an SWE, to future-proof your career, you will need to learn how to provide services that AI cannot provide. Those might not be what SWEs currently usually offer.
I believe it's actually not that hard to predict what this might be:
1. Real human interaction, guidance and understanding: This, by definition, is impossible to replace with a system, unless the "system" itself is a human.
2. Programming languages will be required in the future as long as humans are expected to interface with machines and work in collaboration with other humans to produce products. In order to not lose control, people will need to understand the full chain of experience required to go from junior SWE to senior SWE - and beyond. Maybe less people will be required to produce more products but still, they will be required as long as humanity doesn't decide to give up control over basically any product that involves software (which will very likely be almost all products).
3. The market will get bigger and bigger to the point where nothing really works without software anymore. Software will most likely be even more important to have a unique selling point than it is now.
4. Moving to a higher level of understanding of how to adapt and learn is beneficial for any individual and actually might be one of the biggest jumps in personal development. This is worth a lot for your career.
5. The current state of software development in most companies that I know has reached a point where I find it actually desirable for change to occur. SWE should improve as a whole. It can do better than Agile for sure. Maybe it's time to "grow up" as a profession.
I believe it's actually not that hard to predict what this might be:
1. Real human interaction, guidance and understanding: This, by definition, is impossible to replace with a system, unless the "system" itself is a human.
2. Programming languages will be required in the future as long as humans are expected to interface with machines and work in collaboration with other humans to produce products. In order to not lose control, people will need to understand the full chain of experience required to go from junior SWE to senior SWE - and beyond. Maybe less people will be required to produce more products but still, they will be required as long as humanity doesn't decide to give up control over basically any product that involves software (which will very likely be almost all products).
3. The market will get bigger and bigger to the point where nothing really works without software anymore. Software will most likely be even more important to have a unique selling point than it is now.
4. Moving to a higher level of understanding of how to adapt and learn is beneficial for any individual and actually might be one of the biggest jumps in personal development. This is worth a lot for your career.
5. The current state of software development in most companies that I know has reached a point where I find it actually desirable for change to occur. SWE should improve as a whole. It can do better than Agile for sure. Maybe it's time to "grow up" as a profession.