{"id":5502,"date":"2026-01-12T19:33:54","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T19:33:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/?p=5502"},"modified":"2026-01-12T19:34:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T19:34:22","slug":"software-engineering-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/software-engineering-in-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Software Engineering in 2026: Predictions from Leaders and Practitioners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Software engineering is changing faster than most of us are comfortable predicting. A couple of months ago I wrote about what I imagine software engineering will look like in 2027<\/a>. Some of those things are already happening in reality.\u00a0

So, instead of boldly forecasting what software engineering will look like in 2026, I thought it\u2019s better to share the most interesting insights and signals from people deep in the works, leaders and practitioners who were guests on the Hangar DX podcast.

One theme kept resurfacing: what it means to be a software engineer will keep changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fascinating Problems to Solve<\/h2>\n\n\n\n


Uncertainty about the future is widespread, but it doesn\u2019t automatically translate into pessimism. Annie Vella<\/strong>\u2019s blog post about the software engineering identity crisis<\/a> went viral, but she sees the current ambiguity as an opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We don\u2019t know what the future of engineering looks like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By this time next year, we might have architect-agents that design systems better than we do. Agents may remote-desktop into environments and build end-to-end.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The skill focus is shifting away from models themselves toward the systems that surround them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you want to stay technical, my strongest advice is to learn how to build software that uses AI. Not how to build the LLM, but how to build systems around it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Those systems introduce new, unresolved challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There\u2019s a huge gap in guardrails, memory, agent safety, and secure orchestration. The next generation of engineers will define those patterns.

This career isn\u2019t dying. It\u2019s evolving fast, and there are fascinating problems to solve. The engineers who stay open-minded about where they add value will thrive.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

From Vibes to Real-World Impact<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

AI agents are not a short-lived trend, but a structural change in how software gets built. Matt Biilman<\/strong>, CEO of Netlify, coined the term AX, Agent Experience<\/strong>, as a next step from User Experience and Developer Experience. According to him, we are at the beginning of a longer cycle of creating software for agents:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We\u2019re at the start of the decade of agents. In 2026, we\u2019ll see real-world impact get to the point where they start going deeper into how we work on them.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Matt says early excitement will give way to more grounded outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I think the initial hype of vibe coding will be replaced with the massive actual impact of people starting to realize that they can build software for all kinds of purposes now.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That impact depends on significant platform work behind the scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But we’ll also realize how much work from a platform level we need to put in place for people to be able to use agents in professional contexts where they’re trying to work with existing legacy code bases and data sources.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

For Matt, the most significant change is who gets to participate in building software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I’m pretty excited for how that will change people’s relationship to not just being consumers of software but creators of software.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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