Will AI Replace Developers?
The 1,000-Foot Fence Analogy
A question I hear constantly — and the real answer that most people miss.
I get asked this question a lot:
“Will AI get rid of developers?”
Here’s my standard answer.
Imagine you’re building a fence.
A very long, very important digital fence.
As a senior software engineer, I can personally build about 100 feet of high-quality fence in a day. The posts are straight. The planks are consistent. The gates work. It will stand up to whatever comes its way.
With AI as a tool, that same senior engineer can now build 1,000 feet of fence in the same amount of time.
That sounds like a 10x productivity gain — and in many ways, it is. But there are two critical realities that change everything.
Quality doesn’t scale with speed
If you’re a junior developer, your 1,000 feet of AI-assisted fence will be no better than the quality of fence you were capable of building on your own.
The AI will happily produce 1,000 feet of crooked posts, mismatched materials, and weak joins. It has no judgment. It only has speed.
You can’t just delegate the fence
Even as a senior engineer, I cannot ask the AI to build the 1,000-foot fence for me.
I have to stand right there with it. Every single step of the way.
Because 10 feet into the project, the AI might decide to start using a different color of wood. A little further, the posts start varying in height. A bit after that, the fence quietly splits into two parallel fences because the model lost the plot.
Left unsupervised, it will produce something that looks impressive from a distance but falls apart on close inspection.
AI is an incredibly powerful drafting and construction assistant.
But it is not a replacement for an experienced builder who knows what “good” actually looks like.
The real multiplier isn’t the AI.
The real multiplier is the combination of deep expertise + intense focus.
An average engineer using AI will produce average results at higher speed.
A strong engineer using AI with discipline and constant guidance can produce dramatically more high-quality work.
AI doesn’t eliminate the need for senior engineering judgment.
It makes that judgment more valuable than ever — because now one skilled person can shepherd vastly more output.
The question isn’t “Will AI replace developers?”
The real question is: How good is the engineer who’s using it?
And how focused are they on making sure the fence stays straight?
Darryn Nyberg
Founder of NYBERG TECHNOLOGY