I’ve been writing software professionally for over 35 years. I’ve lived through Quick Basic, Psion OPL, C, C++, VB, C#, Dibol, Delphi, WinForms, WebForms, Silverlight, JavaScript, TypeScript, CoffeeScript, Kotlin, Java, Ionic and other mobile frameworks, Swift, ObjC, Azure, Mobile Apps, Blazor, MAUI and now AI.
Every major technology shift has had people claiming developers are finished.
We’re still here.
What’s changed is the job.
I see a lot of developers using AI as a code generator. That’s fine, but I think they’re missing the bigger opportunity.
The value of a senior developer was never typing code.
The value was understanding the business problem, designing the solution, recognising edge cases, spotting risks, making trade-offs and knowing when something doesn’t smell right.
AI can write code.
AI cannot sit in a client meeting and recognise that the client is solving the wrong problem.
AI cannot look at a proposed architecture and immediately see the scalability issue that’s going to appear in two years.
AI cannot draw on decades of failures, successes and battle scars.
What AI has done is give experienced developers leverage.
Today I can have multiple AI agents generating code, documentation, tests, database scripts and user stories simultaneously. The bottleneck is no longer development speed.
The bottleneck is judgement.
The role is shifting from developer to architect, designer, reviewer, mentor and technical lead.
Junior developers should be learning how to use AI.
Senior developers should be learning how to LEAD AI.
The developers who thrive over the next decade won’t necessarily be the fastest coders.
They’ll be the ones who can combine business knowledge, architecture, communication skills and AI into a force multiplier.
My advice?
Don’t compete with AI.
Learn to manage it.
The future may not need as many people typing code.
But it will absolutely need experienced people who know what code should be written, why it should be written, and whether the AI got it right.
That’s where I think the real opportunity is.