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#artificial intelligence Preprint Open access

Skills for the future software profession: beyond agentic AI!

Abhik Roychoudhury Sungmin Kang Baishakhi Ray
Sep 2026
Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

As coding agents are rapidly changing software engineering, a natural question is: what are the core skills needed by future software engineers? To identify where software engineering is headed and thus what skills will be needed, we summarize the results of two round-tables with researchers and industrial practitioners, held in 2026 in New York and Singapore. One key finding is that verification and validation is increasing in importance as agents handle implementation, as highlighted by anecdotes from the events. From our observations, we identify the skills developers need in the agentic era of development, with implications for training and educating future software engineers in coming years.

DOI arXiv
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