Develop software or computer applications
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
Producing the draft is the single thing current models are best at, and it needs no integration at all: a prompt and a couple of reference documents are enough. A person still edits it and takes responsibility for what goes out.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Drafting and content production |
| Jobs that do it | 10 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Generalist agents, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Thinking Creatively (4.A.2.b.2) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 10 occupations that perform it.
- Develop or implement software tools to assist in the detection, prevention, and analysis of security threats.
- Adapt or design computer hardware or software for medical science uses.
- Develop or assist in the development of transportation-related computer software or computer processes.
- Develop software to control electrical systems.
- Perform systems analysis or programming of radio frequency identification device (RFID) technology.
- Design, develop, and implement computer applications for use in mining operations such as mine design, modeling, or mapping or for monitoring mine conditions.
- Create embedded software design programs.
- Design software to control robotic systems for applications, such as military defense or manufacturing.
- Install or program computer hardware or machine or instrumentation software in microprocessor-based systems.
- Design or develop information databases that include geographic or topographic data.
- Develop or install software, such as firewalls and data encryption programs, to protect sensitive information.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for drafting and content production, and what it costs.
Drafting needs no tools, no integration and no platform. One $20 assistant and two reference documents beat any agent builder here, and every extra thing in this stack is cost with nothing behind it.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Generalist agents
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
10 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Bioengineers and Biomedical Engineers
- Electrical Engineers
- Electro-Mechanical and Mechatronics Technologists and Technicians
- Information Security Engineers
- Mechatronics Engineers
- Mining and Geological Engineers, Including Mining Safety Engineers
- Radio Frequency Identification Device Specialists
- Robotics Engineers
- Surveying and Mapping Technicians
- Transportation Engineers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Design computer or information systems or applications”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.