AI is the asteroid. Your job is the dinosaur. The question is: will your career evolve like mammals, or go extinct like T-Rex? I’m not saying that software engineering jobs will disappear, I am saying they will transform from their current form. Dinosaur jobs are things like writing boilerplate CRUD. New mammal jobs are things like designing AI-integrated systems. There is a lot in between that evolves.

Tech companies are now piloting AI powered interviews where you have to build something using AI during the interview. Are you ready for such an interview? I’m definitely not ready. Would you be able to survive this change next time you are on the lookout for the new job?

These days, with AI, being productive as a software engineer is not the same. A bit of a challenge with AI tools is that they are all new and rapidly evolving. One day, writing good prompts is good skill, next day building AI agents to do the job for you is the next thing, one model is good at this, another one is good at that. The amount of things available is also quite overwhelming.

I remember at one point in my career I felt I got really good at using Visual Studio with Resharper, so good that it actually felt like a significant differentiator in my speed compared to others. Then when I had to switch to other tools/tech (frontend, java, aws, other IDEs, etc) it felt unnatural and was leveling the playing field or placing me at disadvantage compared to people who already knew how to use the other tools. At the same time, the more I had to learn new tools the easier it was to switch the next time.

Adaptability is probably one of the best skills to work on during this rapid evolution in tech. We simply cannot afford to ignore AI, that would be the biggest career mistake you could make right now.

And to make one more point very clear: I believe that software engineering requires strong fundamental knowledge that doesn’t change: understanding of how computers work and interact with each other, understanding of how software runs, algorithms. There will always be a need to figure out how to translate business needs into these fundamental concepts, it is just that the translation tooling landscape is changing and we need to get good at them.

The asteroid has already hit. Your career’s survival depends on adaptability and fundamentals. Learn fast, stay curious, and don’t bet your career on yesterday’s tools. I’m writing this as much for myself as for you. I need to step up a lot.

What is a new AI tool/concept you learned last month?

(for me it was about the architecture of AI agents, incl. MCP protocol)