The author argues software engineers have always been blue-collar skilled workers, not white-collar professionals, and their current anxiety about AI reflects the same technological disruption other trades have weathered for centuries. The shift means developers lose their special status in companies but can adapt by mastering new tools, just as carpenters learned to use power tools.

• Software development is fundamentally a skilled trade like plumbing or carpentry—making and fixing things—except in code rather than physical materials, and should be categorized as blue-collar work.
• Blue-collar workers historically adapt better to technological disruption than white-collar workers because they're accustomed to tools changing; developers' panic about AI suggests they've misunderstood their own position.
• The "honeymoon period" for software engineers—30 years of inflated salaries, protected time, and outsized company influence—is ending as AI commoditizes their labor, but those who learn to use new tools will survive, similar to how lumberjacks adopted chainsaws.