This feels different

I come from a generation of software engineers who started with Technical Books (YouTube was just launched), MSDN Subscriptions and Experts Exchange Account ( Before Stack Overflow). For us, learning was slow but deep. Concepts Stayed.

Personally, I learnt more by teaching stuff I know to others. When one teaches, two learn.

I have lived through the multiple waves of technological changes:

JSP to ASP.net, postback to ajax, SVN to GIT, MPAs to SPAs to PWAs, Waterfall to Agile.

Angular, React, Node, Bare Metal to Cloud and now Cloud to Bare metal.

Back in the days, If you were a full stack developer, you were expected to be keep up with all the changes happening in every direction. Frontend, Backend, DB, Cloud, Infrastructure being the key ones. Being a techie at heart, my day to day ritual was to check X, feel excited/FOMO, learn + implement as much as possible.

I have been through it all and keeping up felt manageable. So Far!

The Age of AI.

Since the last two years, the rate at which things are changing are unbelievable:

1. LLMs

2. RAG

3. Prompt Engineering

4. Context

5. Memory

6. Agents

7. MCP

8. Tools

9. Plugins

10. Skills

11. And now Agent first IDE.

Everyday there is some new concept, a new idea and this is fine.

However, I am not speaking about just the tools changing.

Coding - A Super Skill ?

When I started my journey as a developer, I was always fascinated that I could solve a problem by instructing the computer to do what I want. Over the years, I have put in a lot of work to know clearly what works and what does not work and what to do and surely what not to do.

With AI, things feel different and its like having a cheat codes of a game.

Imagine you are a seasoned programmer with strong foundational skills like

1. Operating System + Computer Networking

2. Thinking in first principles & Patterns

3. Clean Coding Practices

4. Security and Quality From Day 1

5. Implement Best Practices from the past

6. Know your Dos and Dont’s…

You are in a great position. With AI as leverage, those foundations multiply easily.

With AI, Months of “code” can be done in days.

There will be a time when software engineers could be just the “Managers” of software.

The Point of Technology is Change

The industrial age replaces muscles with machines, Photography replacing Painters or computers replacing calculators, change is inevitable.

The more I observe this AI shift, few things become crystal clear and as always some skills are always in demand:

• Learning Mindset.

• Ownership with High Agency

• Communicating ideas clearly

• The ability to solve problems, not just reiterate them

• Strong fundamentals that don’t expire every six months

• Ability to take hard decision with minimal information

• Soft Skills - (Until robots take over)

• Code Review & debugging ( needed at least for some more time)

The Future ??

The future of work may look very different from what we do today. I truly do not know what will change or how it will change, But what I do know for certain is that the skills that helped me navigate decades of change still matter always.

This new way of working is still new to many of us. My only goal as always is to learn and teach what I know.

Let's Connect

Hi, I’m Sandeep Gokhale, and I'm passionate about building high-performing teams at my company, Techvito and I write about Technology, People, Processes and some more stuff.

In case you're looking out for a technology partner to:

1. Help you with AI,

2. Accelerate your business goals with clarity, speed, and quality & security,

3. Who values reliability, security, and transparency,

Me and my team are here and more than ready to help you make it happen.

…then me and my team are here, ready to help you make it happen.

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Until Next time!