Software Engineer vs High-school Teacher: which is more exposed to AI?
38 points apart. These are not comparable risk profiles.
Software Engineer sits at 67% time-weighted AI exposure against 29% for High-school Teacher, a 38-point gap driven by the 32% of software engineer work time that current models can already substitute outright. High-school Teacher holds a larger human-critical core — 57% of the role's time sits in work like "behavioral and emotional support" that models score poorly on. The two sit in different families — Computer & Math and Education — so any move between them is a career change, not a lateral step.
Seven dimensions, side by side.
What actually creates the gap.
Software Engineers spend 32% of their time-weighted week on tasks a current model can produce end-to-end, against 20% for High-school Teachers. The single largest contributor is "write boilerplate & crud code", graded at 92% and worth 14% of the role's time. That one task accounts for more of the gap than any difference in seniority, tooling, or industry.
- Write boilerplate & CRUD code92% · 14% time
- Generate unit tests from specs88% · 8% time
- Author documentation85% · 6% time
- Translate code between languages81% · 4% time
- Mentor junior engineers11% · 3% time
- Negotiate scope with stakeholders14% · 5% time
- Triage production incidents22% · 4% time
- Draft assessments and quizzes78% · 8% time
- Create lesson plans and curricula74% · 12% time
- Behavioral and emotional support6% · 11% time
- Student mentorship and support8% · 14% time
- Parent and community engagement11% · 8% time
Both roles lean on cognitive, procedural — that is the part of your experience that travels intact. The real divide is social: High-school Teachers score 91 there against 32 for Software Engineers, a 59-point spread. That is the gap you would actually have to close.
| DIMENSION | SOFTWARE ENGINEER | HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHER |
|---|---|---|
| Social | 32 | 91 |
| Judgement | 41 | 74 |
| Procedural | 84 | 58 |
Neither role lists the other as a mapped adjacent career, and the capability profiles sit 31 points apart on average. Treat a move between them as a genuine career change with a retraining cost, not as a hedge against AI exposure.
Score your own exposure in 8 questions →Common questions.
Is Software Engineer or High-school Teacher more at risk from AI?
Software Engineer. It scores 67% time-weighted AI exposure against 29% for High-school Teacher — a 38-point gap. 32% of software engineer work time is already fully substitutable by current models, versus 20% for High-school Teachers.
Which pays more, Software Engineer or High-school Teacher?
Software Engineer, by roughly $70k at the median ($132k versus $62k). Note that the higher-paying role here is also the more AI-exposed one, which matters if you are weighing pay against durability.
Can a software engineer switch to being a high-school teacher?
Neither role lists the other as a mapped adjacent career, and the capability profiles sit 31 points apart on average. Treat a move between them as a genuine career change with a retraining cost, not as a hedge against AI exposure.
Which role is growing faster, Software Engineer or High-school Teacher?
Software Engineer, at 17% projected ten-year growth versus 1% — a 16-point difference. Growth and AI exposure are separate signals: a role can grow in headcount while the content of the work is substantially rewritten.