AI code editors are radically changing the job of a software engineer — but not eliminating jobs entirely, a Thrive Capital investor says.
Philip Clark has witnessed the rise of vibe coding tools firsthand. At Thrive Capital, he’s worked on the firm’s investments in OpenAI — which debuted its Codex AI coding tool in May — as well as Cursor. In September, Clark was promoted to partner.
Clark was optimistic about the future of engineering jobs during a recent interview on the “Sourcery” podcast.
“I’m an investor in a lot of companies that use AI tools,” he said. “I cannot think — especially on the coding side and engineering side — of a single one that has laid off engineers because of these tools.”
Clark said that companies in his investment portfolio might be able to “grow without adding quite as much headcount,” but that job elimination was not happening.
“Will there be some turnover in economic centers?” he said. “Of course, there always is. But it’s actually been much more of an augmenting technology than a substituting technology.”
There has yet to be substantive data about AI-related engineering cuts. Hiring appears to be down — software engineer job postings on Indeed recently hit a five-year low — but it’s challenging to pinpoint the exact cause.
Gen Z may be the most worried about these AI tools. 62% of college seniors familiar with them told Handshake that they were worried about their job prospects. Some Gen Z engineers have faced fewer entry-level openings and less training when they start their jobs.
AI tools also have their advantages, including productivity gains and unlocked opportunities.
“You can actually make everyone the 10x or proverbial 100x engineer in a really exciting way,” Clark said.
The “100x engineer” — as in, a 10x multiple of an engineer who is already ten times more productive than the average engineer — is a new term among tech circles. Surge CEO Edwin Chen said that AI tools were creating 100x engineers, which helped build the “$1 billion single-person company.”
Clark remained optimistic that AI would replace menial work. He listed some areas of research that, because of AI gains, humans could more meaningfully pursue: oncology, sustainable mining, and space habitation.
“The beauty of AI is that we’re going to be able to reallocate a bunch of human brainpower, firepower, creativity to these most important problems,” he said.
That brainpower can move away from work that is “not the highest marginal use of humanity’s creative and intelligence potential.”
