“Four years ago, I was that junior developer writing boilerplate CRUD code, proud of every clean PR I merged,” he says. “Today? I watch new grads struggle to land their first job, not because they’re unskilled, but because companies ask, ‘Why hire a junior for $90K when GitHub Copilot costs $10?’”
Still, Agrawal sees a future role for developers who can work with AI. The best software engineers won’t be the fastest coders, but instead, they will be those who know when to distrust AI, he says.
“At my company, my role has shifted from just coding to validating AI output, checking for edge cases, security risks, and logic gaps that AI can’t catch,” he says. “I’m not trying to out-code AI. I’m making myself essential by leading it with judgment.”
