Will AI replace software engineers, or just leave them reviewing its code?

The Guardian interviewed more than a dozen software engineers in July 2026 about work that has shifted from writing code to reviewing what AI writes. The numbers around them are stark. Software engineering was one of the best-paid US professions in 2022, with 1.5 million practitioners earning twice the national median, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since ChatGPT's release that year, Layoff.fyi counts more than 600,000 US tech workers laid off. New York Fed data puts unemployment for computer science graduates at 7% in 2024, up from 6.1%, with underemployment above 19%, and US tech job postings on Indeed fell 36% between 2020 and 2025. Enrolment followed: computer science undergraduate numbers dropped 8.1% and graduate numbers 14% in 2025-26. Google says 75% of its code is now written by AI. Notably, no employer in the piece blames AI for a single cut. The change arrives instead as work that feels different and a hiring market that has closed, which is exactly the kind of displacement no layoff announcement will ever record.