As AI agents accelerate coding, what is the future of software engineering? Some trends are clear, such as the Product Management Bottleneck, referring to the idea that we are more constrained by deciding what to build rather than the actual building. But many implications, like AI’s impact on the job market, how software teams will be organized, and more, are still being sorted out. The theme of our AI Developer Conference on April 28-29 in San Francisco is The Future of Software Engineering. I look forward to speaking about this topic there, hearing from other speakers on this theme, and chatting with attendees about it. We’re shaping the future, and I hope you will join me there! It is currently trendy in some technology and policy circles to forecast massive job losses due to AI. Even if they have not yet materialized, these losses certainly must be just over the horizon! I have a contrarian view that the AI jobpocalypse — the notion that AI will lead to massive unemployment, perhaps even rioting in the streets — won’t be nearly as bad as dire forecasts by pundits, especially pundits who are trying to paint a picture of how powerful their AI technology is. Among professions, AI is accelerating software engineering most, given the rise of coding agents. According to a new report by Citadel Research, software engineering job postings are rising rapidly. So if software engineering is a harbinger of the impact AI will have on other professions, this expansion of software engineering jobs is encouraging. Yes, fresh college graduates are having a hard time finding jobs. And yes, there have been layoffs that CEOs have attributed to AI, even if a large fraction of this was “AI washing,” where businesses choose to attribute layoffs to AI, even though AI has not changed their internal operations much yet. And yes, there is a subset of job roles, such as call center operator, that are more heavily impacted. Many people are feeling significant job insecurity, and I feel for everyone struggling with employment, whether or not the cause is AI-related. And many other factors, such as over-hiring during the pandemic and high interest rates, have contributed to the slowdown in the labor market, and the notion that AI is leading to unemployment is oversimplified. In software engineering, I see a lot of exciting work ahead to adapt our workflows. It is already clear that: (i) As AI makes coding easier, a lot more people will be doing it. (ii) Writing code by hand and even reading (generated) code is not that important, because we can ask an LLM about the code and operate at a higher level than the raw syntax (although how high we can or should go is rapidly changing). (iii) There will be a lot more custom applications, because now it’s economical to write software for smaller and smaller audiences. (iv) Deciding what to build, more than the actual building, is becoming a bottleneck. (v) The cost of paying down technical debt is decreasing (since AI can refactor for you). At the same time, there are also a lot of open questions for our profession, such as: - In the future, what will be the key skills of a senior software engineer? And for junior levels, what should be the new Computer Science curriculum? - If everyone can build features, what skills, strategies, or resources create competitive advantage for individuals and for businesses? - What are the new building blocks (libraries, SDKs, etc.) of software? How do we organize coding agents to create software? - What should a software team look like? For example, how many engineers, product managers, designers, and so on. What tooling do we need to manage their workflow? - How do AI agents change the workflow of machine learning engineers and data scientists? For example, how can we use agents to accelerate exploring data, identifying hypotheses, and testing them? I’m excited to explore these and other questions about the future of software engineering at AI Dev. I expect this to be an exciting event. Please join us! [Original text: The Batch newsletter.]

Tomorrow on Open Source Friday 👇 We're breaking down Spec Kit: what it is, the problems it solves, and how clear specs make collaboration actually work. Principal Software Engineer Manfred Riem explains live. Set a reminder. 🔔

Arthur Hayes @CryptoHayes was born in Detroit, USA, in 1985. He later moved with his parents to Buffalo, New York, where he attended the Nichols School—a private preparatory school located in the city. In 2004, Hayes began his undergraduate studies at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His notable alumni peers include @realDonaldTrump , @elonmusk,  @WarrenBuffett  and others. Subsequently, Justin Sun @justinsun enrolled in a master's program in Political Economy at the University of Pennsylvania, thereby fulfilling his aspiration to become an alumnus alongside the aforementioned figures. In 2008, following his graduation from the Wharton School, Hayes joined the trading division at Deutsche Bank (Hong Kong), marking the beginning of his career as a derivatives trading specialist. In 2011, Hayes moved to the derivatives trading division at Citi (Hong Kong). In 2014, Arthur Hayes co-founded BitMEX alongside Ben Delo and Samuel Reed, focusing primarily on the trading of crypto asset derivatives. Ben Peter Delo @bendelo   is a co-founder and co-owner of BitMEX. And during the relevant Period , he has been the Chief Operating Officer of BitMEX.  He is a U.K. citizen and graduated from Worcester College, Oxford University in 2005 with a degree in Mathematics and Computer Science. He has never been registered with the Commission in any capacity.  After graduating, Ben joined IBM as a software engineer. Later, he developed high-frequency trading systems for the hedge fund GSA Capital and JPMorgan Chase. Samuel Reed @STRML_ borned in1990， is a co-founder and co-owner of BitMEX, and describes himself as Chief Technology Officer of BitMEX.  He is a U.S. citizen and has resided in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Boston, Massachusetts during the Relevant Period.  Samuel graduated from Washington & Lee University with a degree in Computer Science and was served as CTO of two technology companies: Tixelated and Global Brand Solutions of Hong Kong. During the Relevant Period, Reed has held his ownership interest in the BitMEX entities through a Wisconsin limited liability company that maintains bank accounts at banks in the United States, and owns property in the U.S. Reed has never been registered with the Commission in any capacity. Hayes, Delo, and Reed have shared responsibility for various aspects of the  BitMEX business. At a high level, Delo has been responsible for building and overseeing the BitMEX trading engine, Reed has been responsible for building and overseeing the BitMEX website, API and order entry system, and Hayes has been responsible for strategic decisions, business development, marketing, and management of the BitMEX enterprise.  @TheJusticeDept @CFTC  @USDOJ_Intl   @bitmex @BitMEX_Ethan @Crypto_slutz @r_polansky @sudhu_aru @BitMEX_sandisam @business @markets @BloombergAsia @Reuters @watcherguru @zachxbt @insiderwire @WhalePanda @Tintinx2021 @yq_acc @RichardPtardio @JamesWynnReal @muphasamc @huskyXBT @JSeyff @0xcryptosam @degeneratenews @crypto_condom