As Danielle settled into the rhythms of recent motherhood, her occupation underwent a drastic reinvention.
Danielle, who requested to make use of her first identify to keep away from damaging her job prospects, labored as a software program developer at a automotive firm in Portland, Oregon. Earlier than she left the workforce in mid-2024, barely anyone used AI to jot down code; by the point she was able to return, a 12 months later, it had change into the expectation. As soon as upon a time, she had been drawn to coding for the job safety it supplied, however AI was threatening to upend that. “The abilities that I had realized—rote growth abilities—we are actually anticipated to outsource to AI,” Danielle says.
The world’s largest AI firms anticipate a future the place just about all the things is “vibe-coded.” In April, Mark Zuckerberg predicted that AI will write most of Meta’s code throughout the subsequent 18 months. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman just lately told WIRED he expects AI coding to change into “certainly one of these uncommon multitrillion-dollar markets.”
The dizzying tempo of change has touched software engineers throughout the business. However the results are notably acute for brand new moms who, by a fluke of timing, occurred to be away from their desks when the shift was happening.
“The type of work I used to be doing earlier than, I wish to do once more. I believe I used to be good at it,” says Danielle. “However I acknowledge that job won’t ever exist once more.”
The executives accountable for the biggest AI labs have warned that the expertise might wipe out white-collar jobs, from legislation to finance to consulting to gross sales. However few industries have been carved up in the identical approach as software program growth.
With the discharge of coding automation tools by Anthropic and OpenAI in Might 2025, the sphere turned much less about composition and extra about babysitting. Studying this new approach of working isn’t overly difficult, however new moms face falling behind colleagues who’ve benefited from a headstart.
A UK challenge supervisor at the moment on maternity depart tells WIRED her supervisor steered that she brush up on AI whereas she’s out. “It made me really feel very weak,” says the girl, who requested to stay nameless for concern of retaliation by her employer, a growth company. Earlier than she left, workers used AI on an advert hoc foundation, usually for small duties like auto-completing traces of human-written code. However the company is keen for AI to play a bigger function, she says.
“The chance of me spending my statutory maternity pay on an AI course … is slim to none,” she says. “This isn’t one thing I needs to be spending my maternity depart doing.” However she worries that falling behind may make her a goal for layoffs.
Mary McCreary, a knowledge engineer working at a US-based well being tech firm, says her employer helped her acclimate to new AI instruments when she returned to work. Initially skeptical of AI, McCreary got here to understand its potential to clarify the perform of her coworkers’ code. “The factor that I hate most about being an engineer is having to evaluation different individuals’s code,” she says.
However the expertise has nonetheless modified the character of the work. “The draw back is that I don’t get any time to do tedious duties that will be not numerous effort for my mind,” says McCreary. “I’m at all times taking a look at arduous issues, as a result of I’ve offloaded all the tedium.”
One other software program engineer, who lives in Minnesota and works at a advertising software program firm, tells WIRED that AI coding instruments helped her to maintain tempo with colleagues within the face of fatigue and different postpartum signs. “I undoubtedly was not able to return,” says the engineer, who requested anonymity to talk candidly about her firm’s use of AI. “Your physique is crammed with all these hormones and your mind modifications to the purpose that every one you may fixate on is that youngster.” The flexibility to dump duties that require deep and sustained focus—like debugging code—to AI “was extremely useful,” she says.
