Intro

I often hear engineers wondering what the future of work will be. Well, it’s not just going to change for engineering. If we look at the history, every specific industry has changed over the years.

The changes and advancements are inevitable and every industry has felt them over the years. Is AI going to change everything? Well, nobody really knows what the future will bring.

But we can already see some patterns across the industry.

In this article, I am sharing my thoughts on what I am seeing and hearing from various people and I am sharing my advice and my view on what you should do in order to have opportunities and thrive in your career as an engineer.

This is an article for paid subscribers, and here is the full index:

- This is the topic of the talk I had today at the Infoshare conference in Gdansk, PL
- Fewer people, similar productivity or more people and larger productivity?
- More startups starting in 2025 than before?
- More and more engineers will have a shallow understanding of engineering practices
- Human-related skills will shine bright in the age of Gen AI
- Here is what you should do to future proof your career as an engineer
🔒 Getting better at human-related skills
🔒 Leadership
🔒 Teamwork
🔒 Good communication
🔒 Being a great person to work with
🔒 Empathy and overall emotional intelligence
🔒 Getting better at solving problems
🔒 Pragmatism
🔒 Being resourceful
🔒 Utilizing (AI) tools
🔒 Understanding the product/business
🔒 Having a deep understanding of a relevant topic
🔒 Getting better at presenting your work
🔒 Some other potential routes that you can also choose
🔒 If possible, don’t rely just on one source of income
🔒 Last words

This is the topic of the talk I had today at the Infoshare conference in Gdansk, PL

Had a great time today having a talk at the Infoshare conference with more than 500 people attending!

Also was great meeting with fellow newsletter writers!

• Jordan Cutler - High Growth Engineer

• Anton Zaides - Manager.dev

• Michał Poczwardowski - Perspectiveship

Now, let’s get straight into today’s topic!

Fewer people, similar productivity or more people and larger productivity?

We can see that some companies go the first route and some companies go for the second route. Of course, for every business success means either saving or making more money, so both approaches are aligned with that.

My belief is that the companies who are building and selling AI products will automatically go for the first route, because it’s aligned to what they are selling → more productivity, with less people.

And we can see that’s happening with big companies like Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Google doing layoffs.

Ultimately, I believe that companies that will move faster and be more productive in the age of AI will be successful.

More startups starting in 2025 than before?

The graph below is just a visual presentation of what I see happening, there is no data to back that up. But I see a lot of new startups starting at this time, especially AI-related startups and I don’t see that stopping anytime soon.

I believe there will be more and more startups starting in the upcoming years.

So, ultimately the amount of engineering roles there will be will depend on how many new startups are starting and either companies go the first route (less people — similar productivity) or the second route (more people — more productivity).

More and more engineers will have a shallow understanding of engineering practices

I am already seeing this to be the case, especially with jr. engineers coming to the industry.

A lot of them settle for solutions very quickly and are not used to really digging deep into the “why something is working” and “why something is NOT working”.

If we compare people starting now vs 10+ years ago, we can see the big difference. The tools are a lot better and more sophisticated and software development has never been easier.

With AI progressing, I believe it will create more and more engineers with shallow understanding and I believe such engineers will have even harder time getting roles.

But engineers, who go a level deeper will have a better time in the industry. So, for everyone reading, make sure to not neglect that.

I really believe that the deepness of an engineer's knowledge will be worth more and more as time goes on.

Human-related skills will shine bright in the age of Gen AI

As AI progresses further and will be able to generate more accurate solutions either prompted or on its own with agents, the skills that will not be replaceable are human-related skills.

So, these are the skills that will be more and more important. Being able to communicate well, being a great person to work with, leadership, pragmatism, overall problem-solving, etc.

When things around everyone will become more and more “robotic”, people will crave more human touch.

In the future, there will be businesses where people will actually charge money for taking a walk with someone, and people will be willing to pay significant amounts for that experience.
— Gary Vaynerchuk

Now, that we understand a bit more about the trends and patterns happening, let’s get into my actionable advice on what you should do to future proof your career as an engineer!

Here is what you should do to future proof your career as an engineer

You can already get a sense of what things you should be focusing on, based on the trends and patterns mentioned above.

We will go through them one by one and I’ll be sharing the resources for you to get better at them.

Here are the 2 areas that you should work on to improve in all of them.

These are all the skills related to doing good work long term and also it’s really important to not neglect the second part, which makes you impactful.

Good work alone is not enough, you need to make sure that everyone understands how great of the work you are doing.

So, in order to be doing great work, focus on both human-related skills and being good at solving problems.

But don't forget the second part → you need to let everyone know how impactful your work is.

Now, let’s get into my top tips and specific resources that would help you in each of the parts.

Getting better at human-related skills...