I just finished a PhD in stats, and before that, studied computer science. I had planned to go back to industry to do software engineering or be a data scientist afterwards.
However, it seems that in the meantime, vibe coding has taken over the software industry and swallowed most data scientist roles. Few open positions, and the ones that do exist are just pushing a button instead of thinking and solving problems. Is this a correct assessment? Should I try to get back in or just find a new career? I am not too keen on staying in academia either.
It can change the job in ways people don’t like, though. In the same way that a compiler engineer isn’t necessarily going to be happy doing web frontend work in Javascript, somebody who enjoys coding in high-level languages by hand isn’t necessarily going to be happy doing AI-driven development.