As AI coding tools become mainstream, India’s software engineers are moving from writing code to supervising AI-generated work…
Until not very long ago, software engineering was one of the safest and most reliable career paths in India. Coding has been one of the core skills that has helped India’s rise into a global technology hub.
But with the rise of artificial intelligence, the software engineer’s role has changed drastically.
There are now several AI coding assistants such as GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code and OpenAI Codex and these are reshaping how software is built. The engineer’s role has gone from creator to supervisor. Instead of writing each line of code themselves, they now use AI to generate, review and refine code.
And this change is happening faster than you expect.
The latest generation of AI coding tools can generate entire functions, identify bugs, write documentation and even complete complex programming tasks. All of this with minimal human input. Major tech companies have already integrated these systems into their everyday development workflows.
Microsoft’s latest GitHub Copilot desktop application can coordinate between multiple AI agents that are working on software projects. This goes to show how AI has transformed from a mere coding assistant to an autonomous development partner.
This has drastically evolved the role of the software engineers who have gone from coders to orchestrators. Instead of merely writing code, they now spend their time defining requirements, validating outputs and making architectural decisions.
As software engineering undergoes its most significant transformation in decades, a recent Business Insider article called this phenomenon the ‘Great Coding Reset’.
This is particularly significant considering India’s massive software workforce. India recently overtook the USA as the world’s largest developer community on GitHub with more than 21 million developers.
The largest IT firms in the country are moving quickly. More than 300,000 Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses have been deployed by Infosys, TCS and Wipro. This in itself is one of the largest enterprise AI rollouts anywhere in the world.
While this promises higher productivity and faster software delivery, it also raises questions about the future of entry level coding jobs.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff recently claimed that the company has “almost not hired engineers” in the past 2 years thanks to AI coding agents. While the company’s engineering count has remained largely unchanged, the number of AI tools that handle a major chunk of development work has been growing exponentially.
While this does not mean that engineers are being replaced, it does suggest that companies now require fewer coders. Companies are now prioritising skills such as system design, product thinking, AI workflow management and problem-solving over the ability to actually write code.
But despite the rise in AI coding systems, the software engineer’s role is not disappearing; it is evolving. There is no disputing the fact that AI can write better and faster code but it still requires human intervention to define business problems, evaluate trade-offs, ensure security and make critical design decisions.
There are also concerns that have been raised around data leakage, insecure code suggestions and software governance. All of this highlights the continued need for human oversight.
For software engineers, the challenge is no longer simply to write code; it is to learn how to work with AI. Budding engineers will need to learn how to how to direct AI systems effectively, verify their outputs and translate business needs into solutions.
As AI becomes a permanent fixture in software development, the next generation of engineers will need to realize that the most valuable skill is not to write code but to know what to build and why.
Adarsh hates personal bios, Chelsea football club and Oxford commas. When he’s not writing, he’s busy playing FIFA on his PlayStation.
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