AI Automation to Eliminate "Software Engineer" Title by 2026, Anthropic Developer Says

Anthropic’s Claude Code developer Boris Cherny predicts the "software engineer" job title will become obsolete by 2026 as AI automates code generation. In a recent interview, Cherny stated that coding is largely "solved," anticipating a shift toward titles like "builder" or "product manager." Cherny noted that engineers will increasingly focus on writing specifications and user communication, while product managers and designers assume programming tasks. This shift aligns with reports from startup founder Jesal Gadhia, who confirms AI agents now write all code for his company. Former Tesla AI head Andrej Karpathy also reported in January 2026 that his manual coding abilities are deteriorating due to reliance on AI tools.