Software Engineering Expectations for 2026 - The majority of your code should be written by AI now - Cursor/Codex/Claude Code/Gemini/etc - You should try all the tooling and switch between them, as each one gets an edge over the others depending on the release cycle. - You should be... using AI to check the code that is written by AI - Have AI write tests - Have AI read logs - Have AI navigate your browser - I don't do this every time because sometimes it's simple enough to check it myself - You should still skim code changes - This can be a lighter skim on internal tools and a heavier read through on customer facing code - Use AI to help you define specsshow more

"Use AI to help you define specs" and "Have AI navigate your browser" are the worst advice to give to anyone who wants to develop their skills in tech. Don't delegate the design and architecture choices and priorities to the LLM. Remember, these models are trained on a lot of slop data... so it will more likely output slop unless you guide it with the design patterns and the anti-patterns. You 100% need to read over the code changes to make sure it doesn't over abstract or worse use complex solutions to simple problems! But yes, AI is really good for writing functional requirement test cases.

AI programs your code, AI defines the scope, AI fucks your wife too? No thanks!

The slop has depressed you out of your mind dawg

omg new development content from benawad after like 6 years

You are going to quickly become a useless developer this way. Horrible advice. Use AI, don’t become it’s ignorant manager.

The below is critically important to prevent Agents from leaving you with a messy codebase BTW

he's back

feels right until prod screams

My take is this is really bad advice The more you give AI to do your work the more your mental capacity to handle complex tasks reduce Yeah you should give AI repeatable tasks like creating modals you have done before But giving it everything to do doesn’t teach you anything if that is what you are going for If you want to get an idea out there for users to test out quickly then spam AI but there should be a limit

I totally agree. We are all pretty much PMs.

Might want to take a gander if you're a developer in 2026... hope this helps

model arbitrage

Fucking idiot

I keep seeing this kind of advice and the current tech space feels so incredibly elitist for fresh grads without jobs, because these tools are literally expensive, and apparently using these tools is a must-have skill now. AI has turned coding into capitalism.

i hate the fact we have to keep switching to get the best of the best

But would DSA still matter ? IMHO YES, because it changes the way you think about problems would love to know your take on this ?

AI is not at the level yet that it can build a production level complex system, you still need to be the main architect and thinker. he can do the rest.

well stated ben awad

I don't trust it enough yet to merely "skim" code changes, I still read every line of every PR. Time-consuming, but I've caught a couple issues that could have been pretty bad if they reached prod. This has gotten a lot better over time though.

the list is basically ai for everything mate

I make a lot of mistakes So AI teaches me a lot

We aren't writers anymore; we are Managing Editors of a very prolific, very fast, but occasionally hallucinating intern. The skill set has shifted entirely from "How do I implement this algorithm?" to "Does this implementation actually meet the spec?" The bottleneck is no longer typing speed; it's reading comprehension.

I'm going to keep writing my own code, that way I'll keep getting better at it and I'll continue to be capable of maintaining my work. While you all atrophy your brains, I'll keep on actually being able to do my work.

- stop listening to Ben awad

taste is the only moat left. if everyone can ship a feature, the winner is whoever knows what to delete.

I wish there was an OSS solution, but @warpdotdev is doing it best

AI slop will be the biggest challenge of 2026

Gud luck after 1 month, My advice to newdevs, off autosuggestion, they are skill killers.

~95% of klocs vibe coded so far

what about writing code like a human

well said

Omg I remember seeing u on TikTok a while back.. cool that ur on here

2026: software engineers become AI project managers