In the past, and by past I mean 3 years ago, before AI was massively used, you could simply be valuable to a company with the skill of programming. Although that's still true, it's becoming less and less the reality.
And it's going to become less of a reality at an accelerated pace due to AI.
The fact is, unfortunately, that coding or programming has always been reducing over the years. And by that I mean that the amount of code you have to write by hand has always been decreasing.
Think for example of the major frameworks or libraries like React and Vue. Thanks to these technologies, as a developer you no longer had to write endless lines of JavaScript to develop the simplest actions on the frontend.
For the backend, think of frameworks like Node.js Express and PHP Laravel. With such frameworks you don't have to write your entire own request-response code, build route handlers, and with Laravel also no custom SQL code.
The trend has always been that you had to code less and less, and that's normal. But AI has accelerated all of this quite a bit. Maybe too fast, which has given birth to a lot of quacks (a topic for another article).
It's still extremely important that you know how to program. But unfortunately you now also need to possess a number of other skills to actually be valuable in the present and especially in the future as a programmer.
So for this article I have 6 valuable points that I've discovered after my 8 years of experience in this industry as a software developer (programmer). And not only that, I also have skills in all kinds of other fields like design and marketing.
#1 Infrastructure skills
After 8 years of daily programming and also working solo on complicated projects, I've learned the hard lesson that coding is actually just a small fraction of the whole web development.
When you zoom out and look at the bigger picture, you have to make more important choices than simply knowing whether you should use a class or a function for something. Those choices often start with determining the infrastructure.
With infrastructure you often start with: which technologies do you use? Do you want PHP Laravel (I do recommend it) or does Python Django fit better with the project? Are there packages that solve a large part of the project? If so, which frameworks can be used with them?
And even further than that, infrastructure is how you divide your code. Which code will you place in the utils folder? Which code can be restructured to modularize it as much as possible? Here we're still not talking about coding itself, like writing functions.
#2 Focus on the core feature
The most important thing I've learned after working on countless startups and projects, is that you should always concentrate on making the core feature of the app work as well as possible and nothing else.
Forget styling, forget brand colors, forget everything. Focus only on the core feature. This vaguely connects to the infrastructure point, but when you zoom out on a project: people don't remember how good your app looks. They remember how well the core feature works.
If the website looks good and the core feature is pure garbage, then all that branding doesn't matter anymore. Always ensure the core feature, everything else comes after.
#3 Communication is key
The longer you do something, the better you become. Wow, shocker right? But if you look at the other side: the better you become, the further away you are with your knowledge and mindset from the average person.
Not meant negatively, but most people have no clue how technology works. And that's okay. Everyone has their own field and strengths. I can't play football or chess to save my life.
But as a developer this means you need to be able to communicate normally with, well, a normal person. What's complicated and time-consuming as a developer, a normal person has no clue about.
The distance in knowledge in the field of technology makes it difficult to understand each other well. That's why communication is really very important for a programmer or developer, because you possess the knowledge and you have to explain it to your client or manager.
#4 Design is the differentiator
Yes, AI can also make good-looking websites. But the same rule applies here: you still have to give your own input and determine direction. Fortunately, besides coding I did a design education and built hundreds of websites, so I have a taste for design. But this doesn't apply to most developers.
If you want to distinguish yourself from the masses, invest time in learning design principles. The difference between a mediocre and an excellent website often lies in the details: typography, white space, color usage and visual hierarchy.
#5 Go for fullstack
Most developers fall into the bucket of backend or frontend. Very few are really fullstack. As you know, AI is very good at coding, and if you're a specialist it becomes increasingly difficult for you to compete with AI.
If you're fullstack you already have a massive advantage. The reason for this is that AI has a maximum context window, which means it has trouble overseeing large, complex projects in their entirety. As a fullstack developer you can make the connection between frontend and backend, and monitor the complete picture. Something AI still struggles with.
#6 Kick your ego away and use AI
As a programmer there's a kind of pride attached to writing code by hand. If you're in that boat, I'd be worried quickly. Because the fact is that AI can type 10 times faster and look something up 100 times faster.
Besides that, using AI is also a skill in itself. You need to know how to write the right prompts, how to validate the output, and how to integrate AI into your workflow.
Big catch here: you really need to know how to program. Check this article for more information: [add link]
Conclusion
Being able to purely program is no longer enough. That's the hard truth. The developers who only type code without thinking about the bigger picture are going to have a hard time in the coming years.
But that doesn't mean you don't have a future as a programmer. On the contrary. If you develop yourself on the points I've mentioned, you're actually more valuable than ever. Because AI can generate code, but it can't think strategically about infrastructure. It can't sit with a client and explain why something takes three weeks instead of three days. It can't feel when a design just doesn't feel right.
The programmers who are going to win are those who use AI as a tool, not as a replacement. Who understand that their value lies in combining technical knowledge with human skills. Who don't hold on to how it used to be, but move along with how it is now.
So yes, learn to program. But don't stop there.
