We are in the middle of the agentic coding era, please take advantage of it.
Coding agents are changing what it means to be a software engineer.
Typing code on a screen used to be a big part of the job.
But now AI agents can handle more of that work.
The pattern of technological change is familiar:
Mechanical part of work gets automated & human role moves up a layer.
For software engineers, I think it means 3 things:
1 You need to know what good looks like.
An agent can create a feature, fix a bug, and/or refactor code.
But if you don’t know what good implementation looks like, you cannot tell whether the work should ship.
The faster agents write code, the more your judgment matters.
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2 You need to learn how to manage multiple agents.
One developer can already give different tasks to different coding agents. That changes the job.
You become responsible for:
- giving context to agents,
- directing their work,
- checking results.
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3 You need a way to control this across the company.
Imagine all engineers in your company working this way...
You need to know:
- which “agents” people use,
- what they’re doing,
- what they cost,
- what happens when something goes wrong.
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This is why I’m genuinely excited about JetBrains Air.
It gives you an environment for directing multiple coding agents & reviewing their work. So you can delegate more coding work without losing visibility/control.
Plus...
>JetBrains Air Teams lets you coordinate software delivery workflows across engineers & agents. So engineering teams can manage agentic work across the development process.
>JetBrains Air Governance gives organizations policies, visibility, auditability & cost management. So they can control how agents get used & maintain accountability for what ships.
And this works in a world where engineers use different agents & models. i.e., you don't have to bet everything on one provider.
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The bottom line:
Software engineers won’t become less important because agents can write more code. Their role moves up a layer.
You delegate the work.
You still own the result.