Despite recent layoffs affecting thousands of software engineers, Microsoft Chief Product Officer, Aparna Chennapragada, has pushed back against claims that coding is becoming obsolete.
In a recent podcast appearance, she emphasized that computer science remains a valuable skill, even as AI automates aspects of software development.
Her remarks come after Microsoft’s second-largest layoff in company history, which saw 6,000 employees lose their jobs, with software engineers making up a significant portion of the cuts.
Microsoft Layoffs and AI’s Role in Workforce Changes
Earlier this month, Microsoft announced 6,000 job cuts, affecting product development, engineering, and project management roles.
According to Bloomberg, 40% of the 2,000 positions eliminated in Washington state belonged to software engineers, while project management roles accounted for nearly 30% of the cuts.
The layoffs coincide with Microsoft’s aggressive investment in AI, with CEO Satya Nadella revealing that AI now writes up to 30% of code in some company projects.
This has raised concerns about the future demand for human programmers, as AI-driven automation continues to reshape the tech industry.
Aparna Chennapragada’s Perspective: Coding Isn’t Dead
Addressing concerns about AI replacing human coders, Aparna argued that AI is simply another layer of abstraction in programming evolution.
She compared the shift to previous advancements in coding, stating, “We don’t program in assembly anymore.”
Aparna added, “Most of us don’t even program in C. You’re moving to higher and higher layers of abstraction”.
She suggested that engineers may transition into “software operators”, guiding and refining AI-generated output rather than writing code manually.
“There’ll be an order of magnitude more software operators. Instead of ‘Cs,’ maybe we’ll have ‘SOs,’ but that doesn’t mean you don’t understand computer science”, she explained.
Impact on Project Management Roles
Beyond software engineers, project managers have also been affected by Microsoft’s restructuring.
Aparna noted that AI-generated ideas and prototypes will require human oversight, shifting project management roles toward “taste-making and editing” rather than traditional execution.
She emphasized that human judgment remains crucial, stating, “In a world where the supply of ideas, supply of prototypes becomes even more like an order of magnitude higher, you’d have to think about, ‘What is the editing function here?’”.
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