While you bring up some valid points via facts and statistics. I’m afraid I disagree with your conclusion. I will offer mine:

1. Yes, burnout is a common problem in the software industry. But it’s not the fault of the engineer. It’s the fault of the company that employs them.

To quote one of the greatest films in cinema history: “ human beings are not meant to sit in little cubicles, staring at computer screens all day.”

Now when I am engaged in a project that I have my heart invested into and it’s work that i find challenging and rewarding, then I will gladly spend 16 hours straight coding.

2. AI is not going to replace human developers anytime soon. Not even close.

I use GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT 4o every day. It’s my little assistant and has brought me so much joy and helped me so much be happy and productive developer. But I frequently have to run the code many times back through with corrections. AI still requires an experienced developer to generate code that is going to not only be functional, but safe as well.

It’s true that making individual developers more productive could indirectly take jobs because if developers are more productive than theoretically fewer are needed to complete a project, but I don’t see ChatGPT replacing multitudes of developers any time soon.

Conclusion:

I’ve found in my career that most of these large software companies pump out dumpster fire after dumpster fire for apps. Some apps I’ve seen developed are out on the marketplace only to survive for mere weeks before vanishing into obscurity.

Anyone, and I mean anyone would be burned out spending their blood sweaty and tears to create something like that.