AI is removing the middle class of software engineering

AI-powered development tools are accelerating project decay by removing engineering speed limits, allowing teams to generate massive code changes without deep understanding of their systems. As developers increasingly rely on AI agents to implement features without proper architectural consideration, codebases become unmaintainable tangles that no individual understands, trapping teams in a cycle where even developers who wrote code days earlier cannot explain how it works. This eliminates the middle tier of software engineering—experienced architects who maintain code quality—since the speed of AI-generated changes outpaces any human's ability to review and maintain standards.