Why you shouldn’t learn to code in 2025

I made a video that might get some people upset. Not because it’s controversial, but because it will challenge something we've all been told: "Everyone should learn to code.”

I made a video that might get some people upset.

In it, I explain why learning to code the traditional way might be setting you up for obsolescence in 2025. You can watch it here.

But there's something deeper I want to share with you. Something that did not fit into the video format.

It's about the gap between writing code and building systems that matter.

Here's what I mean.

Open ChatGPT right now. Ask it to write you a sorting algorithm. Or some data validation. Or SQL queries. What you'll get is clean, efficient code. Often better than what most developers write. And definitely faster than any human can type.

This is not science fiction. This is happening right now.

But here's what's interesting: Ask that same AI to build you a complete system. Something that handles real user data. Something that needs to scale. Something that has multiple interconnected parts.

That's where it starts to break down.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately while working on NextJob.work. Every feature looks simple on paper. Every component seems straightforward.

But the real challenges? They're never about the code. They're about understanding what happens when users interact with your system. When the real world meets your perfect code.

Look at any software project that stayed relevant over time. The code is hardly what kept it alive. What matters is understanding the hard truths:

That requirements always change.

That users will bypass your carefully designed workflows.

That systems you depend on will evolve in unexpected ways.

That features you think are essential will go unused while seemingly minor capabilities become critical.

These realities don't show up in tutorials. They emerge when you're building something that has to work in the real world.

This is why the ground is shifting beneath our feet. AI can write the perfect function, but it can't understand these messy realities of building real systems. It can't tell you which features your users will actually need, how your system should scale, or what might break when everything's running in production.

This shift is happening faster than we think. And it's not just about AI. It's about the growing complexity of what we're building.

Remember when we spent hours debating the perfect way to write a function? When we'd optimize every line of code, trying to make it as clean and efficient as possible?

Those skills used to set developers apart. Now AI can generate that same code in seconds.

This is why I made that video. But more importantly, it's why I'm writing this to you now.

Because the next generation of developers will not be defined by their coding skills. They'll be defined by their ability to see the bigger picture. To understand systems and to build things that last.

The code? That's becoming a detail. An important detail, yes. But just a detail.

What matters is what you build. Why you build it. How it fits into the larger system.

Think about that next time you start a new project.

What’s your perspective on this? I want to hear from you in the comments.

Talk to you soon,

Ebenezer Don