Software Engineering Skills in the AI Era

The AI predictions are coming. Mine? An uncomfortable amount of software engineers are NGMI, not due to AI but due to lack of curiosity and developing skills that employers seek. We are now one year in; that’s one cohort of people who have skills in applying AI in the realm of software development that run laps around general crowd. By this time next year it’ll be two years since tool calling LLMs and Cursor/Windsurf. That’s two cohorts. So the prediction is simple and is the same. Some engineeers won’t make it but it won’t because of AI it’ll be due to lack of curiosity and employment market taste evolving faster than they can keep up with.