One of the most influential software engineers has hope for junior developers amid the industry-wide uncertainty caused by artificial intelligence.
Martin Fowler spoke on a November 19 episode of ‘The Pragmatic Engineer’ podcast to discuss the state of the software engineering world in 2025 – a year where big tech companies are not holding back when it comes to job cuts. Layoffs.ai has tracked about 114,000 tech workforce layoffs so far in 2025, compared to nearly 153,000 in all of 2024.
The 62-year-old, who has written several books on software development and is chief scientist at software company Thoughtworks, said the mass layoffs in the tech world are a sign that the software development world is in a “depression.” In this current era of “great uncertainty,” he says, companies are not investing in software. And while the tech world is pouring money into artificial intelligence, that growth appears to be something “isolated” that is “clearly vibrant.”
“While companies aren’t investing, it’s hard to make much progress in the software world,” Fowler says. “And so we have this strange mix of no investment, virtually a depression in the software industry, while there’s an AI bubble going on.”
The ‘unpredictable’ AI bubble brings challenges and uncertainty, especially for junior software engineers.
“The thing with bubbles is you never know how big they’re going to grow,” Fowler said. “You don’t know how long it will take before they pop, and you don’t know what will happen after the pop.”
When asked about his advice for junior software engineers, Fowler didn’t discourage them from using AI for coding. However, he said newer developers can’t always determine whether the output of large language models, or LLMs for short, is useful. Then the knowledge of a more experienced coder comes in handy.
He said the best way for junior developers to learn is to find a senior engineer to mentor them. A good, experienced mentor is “worth his weight in gold,” he said.
Fowler is widely regarded as a pioneer in the field of software engineering. He was one of seventeen authors of the 2001 ‘Agile Manifesto’, which redefined the way teams build software together.
He seemed confident that his industry would hold on.
While he said the timing for software engineers entering the technology sector may not be as good as it was 20 years ago, Fowler said there is “a lot of potential in the future” as the core skills required of a good software engineer remain the same today.
“I don’t think AI will wipe out software development,” Fowler said.
