Software engineers are getting closer to finding out if AI really can make them jobless

• Software engineers might have some sleepless nights ahead.
• A startup backed by Peter Thiel has released the "first AI software engineer."
• The tool, called Devin, has rattled software engineers across the tech sector.

Software engineers who managed to survive the brutal wave of tech layoffs aren't in the clear just yet: AI that does their jobs is coming for them.

A little-known startup called Cognition Labs stunned software engineers this week when its team of coding whizzes unveiled what it calls "the first AI software engineer."

This creation from a barely two-month-old startup — backed by Peter Thiel's venture capital fund — might not cause engineers to fret initially.

After all, claims that software engineering is under threat have been rampant ever since the start of the generative AI boom, with tools like ChatGPT proving capable of writing code in response to human prompts.

However, Cognition's AI software engineer appears to have an aptitude that's a notch above.

Devin has had success passing practical engineering interviews from "leading AI companies," Cognition said. It has "completed real jobs" on the freelancing platform Upwork. It can build and deploy apps from start to finish. It can find and fix bugs, too.

When it was evaluated on a benchmark asking AI to resolve issues found in real-world open-source projects on GitHub, Devin managed to fix 13.86% unassisted. That may seem low, but it's a huge leap from the 1.96% of issues a previous top model could correct.

"Tireless, skilled teammate"

According to Cognition, which is led by CEO Scott Wu and is made up of a crack team that has won 10 gold medals at the notoriously difficult International Olympiad in Informatics, its secret to success comes from its focus on "reasoning."

Most AI lacks a basic sense of reasoning, with generative AI tools relying on probability to determine what words make sense to string together in a sentence, for example. But Cognition thinks that "solving reasoning" can "unlock new possibilities in a wide range of disciplines."

Of course, the startup has been pretty careful with how it presents its AI software engineer.

It wants Devin to be seen as a "tireless, skilled teammate" capable of building alongside humans, or independently if left to do that. "With Devin, engineers can focus on more interesting problems and engineering teams can strive for more ambitious goals," Cognition wrote in a blog.

But the release has done plenty to rattle software engineers across the industry.

Kyle Shevlin, founder and software engineer at software development agency Athagist, expressed frustration on X about the industry "trying to aggressively replace one of the few remaining jobs that provides a legit middle-class income."

Evan You, a Singapore-based open-source developer, was more critical of Devin, describing it as "quite underwhelming," adding: "A developer that gets things done only 13% of the time is a liability, not an asset," he wrote on X.

Meanwhile, Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas marveled at how Devin seemed to be "the first demo of any agent, leave alone coding, that seems to cross the threshold" of human capability.

These reactions are understandable at a time when software engineers are feeling the heat.

"10x engineer"

After years of being treated like tech royalty — given their vital role in creating some of the world's most powerful and lucrative businesses — many have been laid off or asked to produce more at a time when efficiency has become a guiding principle.

The conversation around efficiency in tech, driven by the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, has revived discussions around the idea of a "10x engineer" — one who is, in simple terms, 10x more productive than their peers.

If an AI engineer comes along — whether it's Devin or one from another company — and proves to be closer to the 10x engineer model than a human, that might trigger some sleepless nights for software engineers.

AI is already threatening to take other people's jobs. We're about to see what the chances are of it taking the jobs of its creators too.