Software Engineering After Code: How AI Agents Are Changing What It Means to Be a Software Engineer. Monthly Session with Gideon Idoko
There was a time when being a software engineer meant being deeply involved in every line of code. Debugging meant following stack traces, reproducing issues locally, searching through documentation, adding logs, and sometimes staring at the same method for hours until something finally clicked. Speed came from experience, muscle memory, and how well you understood your tools and codebase.
Then AI entered the development workflow. At first, it mostly helped us autocomplete code, explain errors, generate tests, or quickly scaffold something. 𝗥𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗔𝗜 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘼𝙣𝙙𝙧𝙚𝙟 𝙆𝙖𝙧𝙥𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙮 described one phase of this shift as “𝙫𝙞𝙗𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜” — where you could increasingly describe what you wanted and let AI produce much of the implementation. But we’re already moving into something beyond that: what he has called “𝙖𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙘 𝙚𝙣𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜.”
The difference is important. With agentic engineering, the engineer is no longer necessarily writing every line directly. You may be giving an agent a task, allowing it to explore the codebase, implement a feature, run tests, identify failures, make corrections, and come back with a result. Your job increasingly becomes to direct, review, question, validate, and take 𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗣𝗢𝗡𝗦𝗜𝗕𝗜𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗬 for what gets shipped.
And that shift happened quickly. The gap between the engineer who writes every line and the engineer who directs, reviews, and validates AI-generated code opens up faster than many of us expected. It raises some interesting questions: If agents can write more of the code, what does it actually mean to be a good software engineer? Which skills become less important, which become more valuable, and where should developers be investing their time?
That’s the conversation we’re having at our next Naija Java User Group Monthly Session with Gideon Idoko, on “𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗖𝗼𝗱𝗲: 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗔𝗜 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜𝘁 𝗠𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗕𝗲 𝗮 𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿.” Join us as we explore where software engineering is heading and what it means for the people building software.
𝗗𝗔𝗧𝗘: Saturday, 26th September
𝗧𝗜𝗠𝗘: 8:00–9:30 PM WAT
𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗨𝗘: Google Meet.
𝗥𝗘𝗚𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘: https://luma.com/tvxwgzaa.
Stay connected with us:
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁𝘀𝗔𝗽𝗽: https://lnkd.in/ej9fRvzS
𝗫 (𝗧𝘄𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿): NaijaJug
𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗧𝘂𝗯𝗲: https://lnkd.in/eUX_wdQw
𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱. 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁.