Thought Leadership
The world of software development is on the brink of upheaval. Matt Garman, the head of Amazon Web Services (AWS), recently gave an insight into his vision for the future of the industry in a leaked internal conversation.
Garman predicts that in around two years’ time, most developers may no longer be programming in the traditional sense, as Business Insider reports. Sounds worrying at first, but Garman doesn’t mean this in a negative way. He emphasizes that programming is basically just the way we communicate with computers. In his opinion, the real art lies in finding innovative solutions and creating something useful for end users.
What does this mean in concrete terms? The role of developers is likely to change: “It simply means that each of us will have to be more attuned to what our customers need and what the actual goal is that we want to achieve, because that will increasingly be the work, rather than sitting down and writing code,” said Garman, who became head of AWS in June. Garman is not alone in his opinion. Other big names in the tech industry are also seeing similar developments.
But developers should not be afraid of being replaced. On the contrary, Garman sees this as an opportunity for developers to expand their skills and become even more productive. The changes are already underway. For example, Garman shared how Smartsheet has built AI capabilities into a Slack channel to answer employee questions. He encourages AWS employees to be similarly creative and find new ways to integrate AI into their work.
Of course, this also raises questions. How will the training of software developers be organized in the future? What ethical challenges will we face with the increased use of AI? And how do we ensure that human creativity does not fall by the wayside? Only time will tell – and if you follow Matt Garman, then very soon.
