What skills will software engineers need when AI does all the coding? Here's my opinion after 10 years in tech.

Leading AI, thinking clearly, and communication.

Your ability to write code isn’t valuable any more.

Your ability to oversee AI writing code, is.

Don’t get me wrong, you still need to understand how to write code. You will need to correct mistakes, understand context, and review AI generated code.

But you writing the code, won’t happen as much with AI getting so good at it. 

Instead, it’s your ability to understand problems, break it down into well constrained pieces, and then let AI implement the solution that will be the most valuable thing software engineers can do.

You are not a coder anymore, you are an AI overseer.

Your actual ability to produce lines of code, is going to become less and less valuable as AI gets better at coding.

I’m not trying to be controversial, just realistic. AI is better at the “doing” than we are. And it will continue to improve faster than we will at learning to write code.  How many languages does ChatGPT know how to program in? How many do you know?

Software engineers today need to grasp this fact as soon as possible. 

Once they do, we can begin the work of retooling our skillset for a world where AI is writing the code and we are guiding the AI.

Software engineers will think and communicate, not write code.

In the future (next year), software engineers that can think clearly about a problem and distill it down into small chunks for AI to solve will be incredibly valuable. Their scale will be infinite. 

Software engineers that can communicate ideas clearly through writing, speaking, or relationships will be incredibly valuable as well.

It starts with you, deciding today, that you want to get ahead of these changes. 

Begin shifting your mindset to becoming an Augmented Engineer and learn to embrace AI as the doer while you remain the thinker and communicator.

Join The Augmented Engineer waitlist for free weekly exercises to evolve your skillset into what’s required for this new generation of software engineer.