A big part of my week is spent advising CEOs on software development. And lately, almost every one of them has been AI-pilled. They've spun up Claude Code, YOLO'd a few of their own features, watched it work, and arrived at a question that's getting harder for me to answer:
"Why am I paying software developers so much money when Claude can just do it? Why do I have to wait weeks for something AI did in minutes?"
Here's the uncomfortable part: I'm struggling to defend us.
The good software developers I know have effectively retired from writing code. We're all driving AI agents to produce our software masterpieces now. So what actually makes me better than a CEO who's YOLO-ing it on a Friday afternoon? In certain cases, honestly, it's tough to justify our existence.
But "in certain cases" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. After having this conversation dozens of times, I've landed on a framework. It isn't "developers are obsolete" and it isn't "you'll always need us." It's it depends—and it depends on one thing more than anything else.
The 70/20/10 Reality of AI Coding
Before we get to who should hire and who should fire, you have to be honest about how good AI actually is at building software today. Here's the split I see when a non-technical person hands me a task and I run it through Claude Code:
70%
AI just nails it
I copy and paste the task in with little extra context, and the result is exactly what was needed. No developer required.
20%
It needs reshaping
I have to work through technical details—be specific about how to do something, or whether logic belongs on the backend or the frontend. AI isn't always great at that call.
10%
It goes off the rails
AI genuinely messes things up. These are the moments where you need real technical expertise to drag it back on track.
If you're a CEO, that top number looks like a green light. Seventy percent of the time you don't need me at all. And you're right—you don't.
The problem is the other 30%. Because of the non-deterministic nature of AI, you never know in advance which bucket you're in. The same prompt that worked perfectly on Tuesday can quietly produce something subtly broken on Thursday. You can't schedule the 10%. It just shows up.
What Great Developers Actually Do Now
Here's the shift that most CEOs miss. A good developer in 2026 may not be writing every line of code—but they're the one watching AI's progress and stepping in at exactly the right moment. The job moved up a level.
The best developers I know have traded code writing for code review. They're constantly updating the
governance of the product—the CLAUDE.md files and conventions that keep AI doing things the way the business
actually needs them done. I wrote about how I run my own
AI-first development workflow
this way: the human leads the project with excellence; the AI does the typing.
So the real question isn't "can AI write the code?" It obviously can. The question is: in your business, does it matter who's minding the 30%?
It All Comes Down to One Question: How Expensive Is a Bug?
This is the whole framework, and it's the first thing I ask any leader who's thinking about cutting their engineering spend: how mission-critical is your software, and what does a single bug actually cost you?
Answer that honestly and the right move becomes obvious. Let me walk through the three companies I see most often.
Three Companies, Three Answers
1. The company where a bug is a catastrophe
I know a CEO who runs millions of dollars in ad spend across every channel you can name. If a bug slips into the funnel and quietly drops conversion, the losses are enormous. In a business like that, avoiding a single mistake can pay a senior developer's salary for an entire year.
My advice: keep your senior developers.
When the downside of a mistake is measured in real dollars per hour, higher-paid, slower, careful engineers managing the code pay for themselves many times over. This isn't a cost center—it's insurance with a positive ROI.
2. The funded startup that needs speed and competence
Now picture a SaaS product doing hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue. Bugs aren't the end of the world here—customers never love them, but a bug here and there is survivable. Sometimes it even triggers a useful conversation with a customer. As long as you don't break the product every day or lose customer data, you'll be fine.
This startup can't afford a team of highly paid engineers. It also can't afford to move slowly. In the AI era, that's no longer a contradiction.
My advice: go hybrid.
Pair a skilled (often overseas) development team driving the prompts with non-technical teammates who can still contribute in Claude Code. You slash the cost of developers, keep genuine technical competence in the loop for the 30%, and move fast. When a blunder slips through, it's manageable.
3. The bootstrapped founder with little revenue
Then there's the purest case. I recently watched a non-technical CEO build a full-fledged SaaS application entirely on Replit—no engineers at all. He's landed his first customers. He is truly YOLO-ing it, and it's working. This is something that simply could not have happened two years ago.
He keeps asking me to help him build a team. I keep pushing back and asking why? Sure, the code isn't amazing. There are bugs. There are some security concerns. But he's getting traction and finding product-market fit—and that's the only job right now.
My advice: don't build a team yet.
Adding people would be expensive and slow him down. Keep moving forward. Don't hire until there's real money to fund it—or until there genuinely aren't enough hours in the day, even with AI doing the heavy lifting.
From CapEx to COGS
Here's the reframe I keep coming back to. There are a lot of businesses out there that simply do not need formally trained software developers. They can live inside the 70% where AI just nails it. And even when the code goes to hell, it's usually easily reversible. I've made my peace with a little AI slop if it drives profit and revenue faster.
I think software developers should move from a capital expenditure to a cost of goods sold.
If engineering talent demonstrably drives profitability—like protecting that million-dollar ad budget—hiring great people is a no-brainer. If highly paid developers are just a drain on cash flow, maybe it's time to buy Claude Code accounts for your customer service reps, marketing specialists, CEOs, and CFOs instead.
This is the side of the AI revolution that doesn't get talked about enough. For the first time in the entire history of the tech industry, business people are not beholden to software engineers. That is genuinely magical. It's also, if you're a developer, genuinely scary.
Why This Advice Is Hard for Me to Give
I'll be honest: as a veteran software developer, I hate giving this advice.
When I tell a CEO they need developers, they assume I'm talking my own book and protecting my industry. When I tell them to fire the developers and just YOLO it, I feel like I'm betraying my profession. And when I tell them to look for overseas help, I feel like I'm betraying my country.
There's no comfortable answer in there. But my job is to give CEOs the truth as I see it, not the version that's most flattering to people like me. And the truth is that they've been AI-pilled for a reason. They can see a path to just doing it themselves, because in a lot of cases that path is real.
The Bottom Line: A+ Developers Have Never Had It Better
So, should CEOs fire their software developers? For some companies, the honest answer is yes—or at least, "stop hiring more and hand your team a few Claude accounts." For others—the ones where a bug costs a fortune—cutting engineering would be one of the most expensive mistakes they could make.
But here's where I've landed on what it means for developers themselves, and I believe it more strongly every week:
For A+ developers, there has never been a better time. You will thrive.
If you're a B- developer or below, it might be time to think about a career change. CEOs have Claude now—and they've noticed.
The leverage didn't disappear. It moved. It moved away from typing code and toward judgment: knowing when the 30% is about to bite, knowing what a bug is worth, and knowing when to tell a CEO to keep going without you. That's the job now. And it's a good one—if you're great at it.
