Recently, I noticed that people on social media use the word “coder” when they try to glorify the power of AI in software engineering. Usually, these posts claim that popular AI tools for software development are better than traditional software development and can replace the work of a “coder”. “Coder” is often used as a synonym for software developer or engineer. It seems that there is a big misunderstanding of what software developers actually do in general.
It is not only about writing code. In reality, software developers spend much more time reading existing code than writing it. And it is not only about reading and writing code either. I would say that this is around 20 percent of the work. The other 80 percent is about understanding the domain of your software, communicating with people in and outside your team, and expressing your ideas or problems clearly in writing or speech. The word “coder” represents a very foggy view of software engineering.
Personally, what bothers me most is how some online AI influencers simplify our profession to make their message sound more dramatic. They call software developers “coders” as if we were a strange, isolated group that only types code all day. That framing is not just inaccurate, it is dismissive. Software development is deeply human work, and no catchy narrative should erase that.