A friend and I graduated the same year, and both had potential as a coder or graphic designer.

I chose to focus on coding, he chose to focus on graphic design.

I have had higher income and stronger job stability across my career, so far.

AI has affected both professions, but AI is still shit at doing either job correctly. It seems immediately obvious when companies shovel out AI slop images. It is less obvious when back end web server code is a vulnerable pile of shit. There’s a lot of “fuck around and find out” happening in AI over-adoption, right now.

The market for programming is at an all time low, with like 93% employment, last time I checked. - Which is still pretty nice.

The US gov predicts further recision of programming jobs next year. Recruiters reaching out make it seem - to me - like the demand is heating back up, again. But I’m some random person, and they’re scientists. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ If I were you I would trust them more than me.

References:

www.bls.gov/ooh/…/graphic-designers.htm

www.bls.gov/ooh/…/computer-programmers.htm