16 GB enough ram for my use case?
I program in 8 GB and run light virtual machines and docker. You’d only need 16 or more for very specific cases. The new OS take less ram since Apple is dropping all the 32 bit frameworks and libraries. In general 3rd party apps are slimming faster than they are growing now as well, but with M1 and Intel, apps will be larger for a short term but that doesn’t really affect RAM at all, just disk space and network time to download.
You can compile LLVM from first principles on a 2015 MacBook or 2016 MacBook Air, so seriously large and complicated builds don’t require exotic hardware anymore.
The only cases for large RAM are massive browser needs and several VM for more than light testing.