Baking Your Own Bread: Who Should Build Software Now That Everyone Can

René Kulik on 02.10.2026

Introduction

At Rails World 2026, DHH opened the conference with a keynote that boils down to two words: pencils down. At 37signals, writing code by hand is no longer the normal way of working. It is the exception. He compared the current moment to the Kodak Brownie, the cheap camera that turned photography from a craft for professionals into something everyone could do.

I agree with him. Not because the keynote was provocative, but because it matches what I have seen at my own desk over the last months.

In this post, I want to share how my own work has changed, where I think the line runs between building software yourself and getting a professional involved, and what I expect for our profession.

From Engineer to Manager

Over the last months, I wrote less and less code myself. I acted more like a manager than a software engineer. I tell the model what I want, not how to implement it, and it does the implementation.

I still read and review the code thoroughly. But as the models got better, they more and more often one-shotted a feature and the code quality was something I would happily merge. The models even handled edge cases I had not thought of myself. My aha moment came with Opus 5.5. For the first time, my review mostly confirmed the result instead of correcting it.

That does not mean I skip the work around the code. Describing the requirements, deciding on the approach, and checking the outcome are still my job. I wrote about the setup that makes this possible in The System Around the Agent. What changed is that the typing is no longer the part I spend my time on.

Everyone Can Build Software

I am not the only one experiencing this. More and more people create their own software projects, many of them without a technical background. The question is no longer whether they can. The question is how far they should take it.

I find it helpful to compare it to other crafts. I can bake my own bread, cut my own hair, or build my own dining table. Nobody would stop me, and for simple cases the result is perfectly fine. But there is a threshold of complexity where it makes sense to get a professional involved. Software now works the same way.

A Personal Website

Can someone without technical knowledge create their own website and put it on the internet? Definitely. It takes an hour, maybe even minutes. Should they do it? Yes, why not. For a personal website, I do not see the need to hire a professional anymore.

A Small Online Shop

Can a small business without technical knowledge build its own online shop and put it out into the world? Yes, that is possible. Should they do it themselves? It depends.

Using a website builder with AI assistance is a great option. The hard parts like payments, hosting, and security are already solved by the platform. But if the shop needs to be custom because the business has very specific needs, a professional should steer, or at least review what the model produced before it goes live. A shop handles money and customer data. A mistake there is not just embarrassing, it is expensive.

Software at Scale

Should bigger companies vibe code their software from now on without looking at the code? In my opinion, no. There should still be a professional who looks at the structure and the architecture of what the model produced. Someone who knows what a hook is, what a context is, and how the authentication flow works in detail.

The model can write all of that. But someone has to be able to tell whether it wrote the right thing, and that person needs to understand the code on a higher level, even if they did not type it.

HEY Is the Exception, Not the Rule

DHH’s showcase was HEY. 37signals moved it from a web app to native applications and rebuilt the backend in Rust. That fits their vision of HEY being native, and Rust is fast and works well with AI agents.

But this was a rewrite. They already had all the requirements, and they knew exactly how the application should look and behave from top to bottom. I would also bet they have end-to-end tests they could run against the new version to verify it behaves exactly like the old one. That is close to the ideal setup for an agent: a complete specification and a way to check the result automatically.

Most projects do not start there. Requirements are unclear, they change halfway through, and nobody knows yet what the finished product should look like. So for me, HEY is an exception. I have yet to see another large application that was mostly built or rewritten by an AI model.

What This Means for Jobs

Will there be fewer software development jobs? Yes. We can already see it.

Will it be hard for junior developers to enter the industry? Yes. If you have just finished your studies or are early in your career, finding a job is very hard right now. Many of the tasks juniors used to learn on are exactly the tasks models now do well.

On top of that, the economic situation is not great. Companies seem afraid to hire and to start new projects because they are unsure about the future. That makes it harder for experienced developers to find a new position as well.

Do We Really Need More Software?

So if we stop looking at the code, talk to a model in plain English, and everyone can build software, does that mean developers will not be needed anymore?

Some argue the opposite. Since software becomes cheaper and faster to build, demand will grow, and we will need even more people to build it. Robert C. Martin made this point recently:

I agree with the first half. Engineering software now means managing agents, and that matches my own experience. But I am not convinced that more productivity per developer leads to the same number of developers. Does an online shop need new features every week? Does an internal company application need to be extended every week? Most software I know has a natural size. Once it does its job, it needs maintenance, not constant growth. Faster production does not automatically create more demand for the product.

Conclusion

Everyone can build software now, and that is a good thing. For a personal website or a small side project, you do not need a professional anymore, the same way you do not need a baker to make bread at home.

But complexity has a threshold. Once money, customer data, or a large codebase is involved, someone needs to understand what the model built and take responsibility for it.

I believe there will always be demand for highly skilled developers who know how to work with models and can steer entire software projects. There will just be fewer of us, and the job will look a lot more like managing than typing.