Ask HN: Will AI push more of us into freelancing?
5 gashmol 9 8/2/2025, 10:20:52 AM
AI tools are automating bigger pieces of software work every month. Do you think that will shift the market away from traditional full-time roles toward contract or freelance gigs?
What’s your current setup (full-time, freelance, hybrid, student, between jobs, etc.)?
How do you expect AI to change that balance over the next few years, and why?
Curious to hear your experiences, predictions, or any data points you’ve come across.
A solo indie developer can have an AI team working on a project.
But so will every corporation. The competition for the remaining human-only roles will be intense.
So entrepreneurial activities will be easier and more common. On the other hand, there will be relatively fewer opportunities for specialized consultants. Contractors and consultants should be able to solve bigger problems rather than working in narrow specialties.
Teams and companies should have fewer members, since fewer specialties are needed. So they will probably need more contractors to move things along when there is a lot of work to do.
Be flexible to learn new skills, to take on new roles… but why wouldn’t the AI already be be doing that work too?
Today's software crisis is not one of too little but too much. We are absolutely spoiled for computing power -- a smartphone having enough capacity to replace a mainframe that in the 1970s or 1980s would have handled a national bank's transactions, many times over. We are awash in software, most of it bad. We need less software and better software. Stochastic slop generators are going to make this problem worse, not better.
It may be a rough few years, but on the other side there will be a boom in demand for programmers to clean up the mess "AI" has made.