Techies getting paid more than other engineers, teachers can't be taken for granted: Sridhar Vembu

'This is sobering but necessary to internalise,' Zoho co-founder and chief scientist Sridhar Vembu said.

Zoho co-founder Sridhar Vembu on Sunday mused that although software engineers get paid more than several other professionals, including engineers from different streams, it cannot be taken for granted, especially with a productivity revolution brewing that could destroy many software development jobs.

"I have often said this to our employees: the fact that software engineers get paid better than mechanical engineers or civil engineers or chemists or school teachers is not some birthright and we cannot take that for granted, and we cannot assume it will last forever," Vembu wrote. "The fact that customers pay for our products also cannot be taken for granted."

The Padma Shri recipient added that the industry must also prepare for the productivity revolution he sees "coming to software development (LLMs + tooling)". "This is sobering but necessary to internalise," he said.

"This is to remind ourselves that we can be 'disrupted' - and the more we assume we won't be, the more likely we will be. Or as Andy Grove of Intel said, 'Only the paranoid survive'," the Zoho chief scientist said.

Role of in productivity revolution

Vembu's concerns about the loss of jobs in software development are supported by the fact that AI is helping companies and individuals write code without the help of coders. For example, Replit CEO Amjad Masad had recently said that learning to code is now pointless as AI rapidly progresses towards full automation of coding tasks. Instead, he advised people to focus on problem-solving and creativity, which he believes will remain valuable skills in an AI-driven world.

“I no longer think you should learn to code,” Masad wrote on X.

Replit provides an AI-powered platform that enables users to build apps and websites with minimal coding expertise. Moreover, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei also predicted that within six months, AI could be generating up to 90 percent of all code.