I think people are coping. Software engineering has only gotten easier over time. Fifteen years ago, knowing how to code made you seem like a wizard, and learning was tough - you had to read books, truly understand them, and apply what you learned. Then came the web and YouTube, which simplified things a lot. Now with LLMs, people with zero experience can build applications. Even I find myself mostly prompting when working on projects.

Carmack’s tweet feels out of touch. He says we should focus only on business value, not engineering. But what made software engineering great was that nerds could dive deep into technical challenges while delivering business value. That balance is eroding - now, only the business side seems to matter.