The end of software engineering? - Not even close.
Jordan Cutler, Senior Software Engineer @ Pinterest and author @ High Growth Engineer, a newsletter with >80k subs, advises engineers on their careers. He believes now is the time to up skill.
Are software engineers doomed?
If you pay too much attention to certain “thought leaders” on socials, you might conclude that AI has rendered the profession obsolete. You only need a subscription to Cursor, Replit, or any of the many AI tools available to conclude that writing code is a solved problem. Right?
Talk to anyone who has been in the details or extensively uses these tools, and you’ll hear a very different story. It’s true that – in the right hands – they offer large efficiency gains. But we are nowhere near eliminating the role of a software engineer.
Jordan Cutler is definitely in the details. He has extensive experience using AI for software engineering and advises others on this topic in his newsletter.
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The landscape is changing very fast. Some might think: what’s the point of learning these skills in the first place? Rather than eliminating software engineers, these tools provide opportunities to up level them. Each layer of seniority will be elevated. Junior + AI = Mid-level. Mid-level + AI = Senior. Senior + AI = Staff. And so on and so forth. There will be increased efficiency across the board.
In this week’s edition, we cover:
The advice Jordan gives to entry-level software engineers
How to use AI to improve communication and design better systems
The engineering skills that companies will hire for in an AI future
The advice Jordan gives to entry-level software engineers
Jordan advises entry-level engineers to approach their skill set as they might approach managing a portfolio. Diversification is key.
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Develop your people and AI skills (some recommendation in the footnote1), use AI to solve problems, and ensure you have the people skills to work with anyone.
He then breaks it down even further with a framework for entry-level engineers to use for evolving their careers.
The 3 Es for entry-level engineers:
Education: Evolve your understanding of the foundations, for example, embeddings and AI's probabilistic nature and randomness. There are AI courses on Udemy that can help.
Exposure: Curate your “information diet” and read content from credible experts, whether it’s newsletters or following them on LinkedIn. (Recommendations in the footnote2)
Experience: Start building products. AI can guide you to an output, and you’ll quickly understand whether your code has worked or not.
Using this framework to read credible content gives the quickest route to discovering the best AI tools. Learning how to master them is the best way for engineers to up skill themselves to a mid level role, so practice is key. We’ve listed some great resources to feed your brain at the bottom of the post!
How to use AI to improve communication and design better systems
We move on to how engineers can use AI to enhance their own communication. Being able to get a framework onto paper (even if digital!) for others to understand is a skill that’s useful for everyone, which Jordan discusses:
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For engineers, being able to use tools like chatPRD and WriteEdge gives them a flexible way of writing precise product requirement documents (PRDs) by voice dictation without needing to start a document from scratch.
This moves the focus from building a well-formatted output to refining a proposal. We’ve all seen nicely formatted memos or slideshows that help to “sell” an idea that hasn’t been thought through. Time spent formatting these outputs could be spent refining the actual idea instead.
This is the power of AI. It minimises the time spent on formatting, so more time can be spent on the idea itself.
Jordan also highlights a similar benefit when working cross-functionally with designers, for example:
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There are times when I’ll have an idea for a product feature. The options for communicating it to a design team are:
1) Explaining the feature verbally.2) Putting low-fidelity designs together on a tool like Excalidraw.
3) Building a prototype.
Each is better at explaining an idea than the previous one but requires more effort. Tools like v0 can help with producing higher fidelity designs with minimal effort.
Using v0 you can turn a simple prompt into a working front end prototype, which often reveals missing details. It makes it easier to get an idea approved by a cross functional member of your team, because it’s more refined and considered.
The engineering skills that companies will hire for in an AI future
Finally, we discuss how engineers can prepare for the jobs of the future. Jordan advises reframing what an engineer should consider “their job”.
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You shouldn’t view your job as simply taking tickets and executing them. That job is probably going to be eliminated in the next 5 years. Focus on building relationships with other cross-functional colleagues. Engineers should use AI to up skill in other areas, to collaborate with an iterated proposal (designs in Figma, PRDs, etc.).
This is a common theme from my conversations with domain experts.
The overly specialised worker that only does a single thing well? AI is likely to free up their time, which they can then use to take their work to the next level and work on things that were previously out of their scope.
Jordan also highlights the relative ease of getting started with learning a skill:
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A simple example: I had a friend, a backend engineer, who wanted to get started with a new front end programming language. With a search engine he’d have to traverse multiple links with different answers that are difficult to navigate. With AI? Asking the right questions and prompting effectively, gets him there much faster
Wrap up
It’s easy to get caught up in the AI hype, but it’s clear that engineers are not going to be out of a job at any point soon. That’s not to say nothing has changed either, though. As with most desk based work, engineers will need to get comfortable with working outside their scope and constantly up skilling. The only constant is change, so being comfortable with it is no longer a nice to have.
Kent Beck - Author of tidy first. Learn how keep your code tidy so you keep your velocity high.
Jordan Cutler - Author of High Growth Engineer. Technical design templates to take your writing as an engineer to the next level.
Gregor Ojstersek - Author of Engineering leadership. Diversify your skills and improve your EQ.
Gergely Orosz - Author of The Pragmatic Engineer. Build understanding of AI engineering.
Dave Anderson - Author of Scarlet Ink. Navigate the politics of big tech.
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