The typical IT department of today has:
- Developers who write code as instructed
- Architects who handle system-level thinking for software systems
- Business Analysts who translate business needs into technical requirements
- Product Owners who represent the business and their needs
- Delivery Managers who manage the team personnel
In the AI age, AI agents can write the code, making traditional “Developers” redundant. The Architects will oversee the work done by AI agents.
Thus, the Architects will serve as the final human layer and will probably be called “Solution Engineers” instead (to keep their role appropriately grounded).
While Solution Engineers will be the norm, it will also be common for Solution Engineers and Business Analysts to share skill sets, adding more value to the organization.
This trend will be complemented by a parallel shift toward a more platform-based approach to software building and deployment. For example, with fewer people available to build software components, companies will rely on standardized platforms to deploy services. These platforms will be designed to ensure scalability and performance for all workloads deployed on them.
As such, the Software Engineers of tomorrow — whom we have called Solution Engineers — will be expected to serve as effective supervisors of AI coding agents, focused on delivering software solutions in their respective business domains.
N.B. We can also foresee the need for an AI Coding Agents team whose job will be to manage the infrastructure for AI coding agents. This will largely merge with the DevOps organization.