Beyond Coding

Danila Shtan runs engineering at Nebius, one of the biggest AI clouds in the world, and he told me exactly which engineers he hires on the spot. There are only hundreds of people on the planet with the skill he wants most, and it is not the one you are grinding on. We get into which engineering skills are actually scarce and well paid today, and which ones are quietly on the way out.
In this episode we cover:
The engineering skills in highest demand right now and which ones are on the way out
Why an AI cloud CTO restricts Claude Code inside his own company
Dan's rule for merging any AI-written code into production
Why working with an agent is like managing a junior engineer
The interview question that surfaces top tier engineer qualities
Why he still runs algorithm interviews today
If you are an engineer trying to work out where the value sits now that agents write the easy code, this is a straight answer from the person building the infrastructure underneath all of it.

Timestamps:
00:00:00 - AI Agents doing everything is a lie
00:00:44 - What Nebius Actually Does
00:04:31 - The Engineers In Highest Demand Right Now
00:06:58 - Inside the Hiring Process
00:08:12 - The Bootcamp: You Join the Company, Not a Team
00:10:51 - Why You Can't Use AI in Their Interviews
00:16:31 - Why He Banned the Word "Headcount"
00:22:25 - Why a CTO Is Not a Technical Role
00:24:49 - The One Skill Every Manager Needs
00:25:48 - Why Smart People Fail at This
00:28:17 - "The Promise of Agents Is Bullshit"
00:31:39 - How AI Multiplies Your Baseline Skill
00:35:32 - Why an AI Agent Is Just a Junior Engineer
00:36:57 - Why He Won't Let His Team Use Claude Code
00:37:46 - His Rule for Merging AI-Written Code
00:40:28 - The Interview That Predicts Great Engineers
00:42:32 - From T-Shaped to Round-Shaped Engineers
00:44:30 - Is There Still a Path for Juniors?
00:45:28 - Why Hard Skills No Longer Matter
00:47:11 - The Engineers Who Will Become Obsolete
00:50:04 - The Real Reason People Stay at Banks
00:52:26 - Where AI Agents Actually Help
00:54:40 - Why He Still Uses Algorithm Interviews
00:56:05 - Tech Enthusiasts vs. Real Engineers
#AIEngineering #TechCareers #SoftwareEngineering

120,000 tech workers have been laid off in 2026, yet there are 60,000 open roles. Engineers applying are sending out 100 applications for zero replies. Former Reddit, Uber and Disney Plus recruiter Keki Mwaba breaks down why the market broke, why every resume now looks identical, and what gets you hired when yours looks like everyone else's.
In this video, we cover:
Why 120,000 layoffs and 60,000 open roles don't add up
Why CVs have become too good and it's no longer enough
How to treat LinkedIn as a platform
Getting into companies like OpenAI and Anthropic
How to reach out to people without seeming fake
If you're a software engineer trying to stand out in the most competitive tech market in years, this is the playbook.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:35 - How bad is the tech job market in 2026?
00:02:38 - 120,000 laid off, 60,000 jobs open: the math is not mathing
00:04:05 - LinkedIn isn't a CV, it's a platform
00:08:30 - The underrated move: comment your way into a job
00:10:48 - Is AI ruining LinkedIn?
00:13:50 - Never feel safe: how to prepare before a layoff
00:15:34 - What layoffs do to the people who stay
00:17:03 - "Did I just automate myself out of a job?"
00:18:48 - Why every resume now looks the same
00:20:11 - Why referrals beat applications
00:22:13 - Do software engineers still have a future?
00:23:32 - The staff engineer who wants to quit for plumbing
00:26:16 - Patrick on his own job security
00:30:21 - 70% of job descriptions now demand AI skills
00:31:34 - Is middle management disappearing?
00:33:53 - The impossible ask: stay current, deliver, and not burn out
00:37:02 - How to get hired at OpenAI or Anthropic
00:39:18 - How to message someone without seeming fake
00:41:42 - Build a portfolio that shows your thinking
00:45:12 - Your personal branding plan for the next few weeks
Guest: Keki Mwaba, career and recruitment expert:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/keki-mwaba
#techjobs #softwareengineering #careeradvice

Jeroen Gordijn and Jeroen Dee: two frontrunners who stopped writing code months ago and say software development is already solved. Typing code is no longer necessary, but what matters more now? If you're an engineer that loves coding, you're in a tougher spot than you might realize.

In this video, we cover:
- Why writing code is "solved" but engineering isn't
- Spec-driven development and how to get it started in your team
- The "Dark Factory" and why code review is a huge bottleneck
- Model vs harness: what matters more, and why
- The unhealthy side of agentic coding

If you write software for a living and you're trying to work out what your job becomes next, start here.

Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Coding Is No Longer Necessary
00:00:43 - Why "Software Development Is Already Solved"
00:02:57 - Should You Even Read the AI's Code?
00:05:05 - What Is a "Dark Factory"?
00:06:52 - If You Can Regenerate It, Why Care About Quality?
00:07:49 - Spec-Driven Development Explained
00:11:32 - Adopting Specs Without Starting From Scratch
00:13:23 - Model vs Harness: What Matters More?
00:17:27 - Is Your Harness the New IDE?
00:20:18 - Why Everyone Plateaus (and the Innovation Token)
00:22:50 - Where to Actually Spend Your Time
00:24:57 - The Unhealthy Side: "It's Free Cocaine"
00:28:00 - Is This Sustainable, or Just Subsidized?
00:30:33 - Should You Run Models Locally?
00:34:31 - Looping, Scale, and Automating Review
00:37:53 - What's Left for Engineers to Do?
00:39:13 - If You Love Writing Code, You're in Trouble
00:41:18 - Why Teams Are Getting Smaller
00:43:03 - What an "Agentic Company" Looks Like
00:46:25 - How to Start: Find Your Spark
00:50:13 - The One Habit That Keeps You Ahead

Guests:
Jeroen Gordijn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeroengordijn
Jeroen Dee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeroendee

#AgenticEngineering #SoftwareEngineering #Agents

AI generates 10x more code, but your senior engineers still review it by hand and it's burning them out. Even Google admits code review is now the bottleneck nobody knows how to solve.
Florian Buetow, AI engineer at Xebia, has been running experiments to eliminate the human from the review loop entirely, and what he found changes where engineers should focus their effort.
In this episode, we cover:
Why "stop doing code reviews" is a serious answer (and what replaces them)
The guardrails that gave the most value: Semgrep rules, architectural unit tests, and stop hooks
Why your harness matters more than the model
How Amazon and Google police AI-generated code with policies
AI burnout, cognitive debt, and "cognitive surrender": what stays your responsibility
Step one for adopting agentic software engineering in your team this week
Whether you're an individual developer drowning in AI-generated PRs or driving AI adoption across a large engineering org, you'll leave with concrete experiments to run.
More from Florian:
https://cracking-ai-engineering.com

Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:40 - Code Review Is Software Engineering's Biggest Bottleneck
00:01:57 - How Amazon and Big Tech Police AI-Generated Code
00:02:55 - Horizontal vs Vertical Scaling of AI Engineering
00:04:37 - Why "No Code Reviews" Might Be the Answer
00:05:22 - Engineering Environments That Give Agents Feedback
00:06:46 - Why the Harness Matters More Than the Model
00:07:21 - When Spec-Driven Development Failed and TDD Worked
00:10:06 - Stop Hooks, Ralph Loops, and Automated Feedback
00:11:30 - The Guardrails That Gave the Most Value
00:14:00 - Architectural Constraints That Keep AI Code Sane
00:15:07 - What Remains a Human Responsibility
00:17:33 - Why All the Hard Work Moves Upfront Now
00:18:47 - The Incredible Skill Junior Engineers Should Learn
00:20:26 - AI Burnout: Why Engineers Are Exhausted
00:22:42 - Cognitive Surrender: Letting the Agent Take Over
00:23:25 - The Hand Grenade Problem with AI at Work
00:24:08 - Outsourcing Code Review to AI Itself
00:26:39 - Teams That Fully Adopted Spec-Driven Development
00:29:01 - Can You Rebuild Software From Tests Alone?
00:30:27 - How to Experiment and Stay Ahead
00:33:15 - Spying on What Subagents Tell Each Other
00:33:59 - Step One: How to Start with Guardrails
00:36:08 - Data Mining Your Session Logs for Patterns
00:37:00 - Stuck With One Harness? Here's What to Do
00:38:28 - The One Experiment to Run This Week
#softwareengineering #aicoding #codereview

Are you ready to adapt to the rapidly evolving rules of software development?
In this deep dive, Logan Kilpatrick, Director and Engineer at Google DeepMind, breaks down how AI agents, advanced model-product symbiosis, and tools like Gemini 3.5 Flash are fundamentally shifting the engineering bottleneck. Learn how to maintain your competitive advantage by moving beyond the keyboard to focus on problem-solving, architectural taste, and system understanding.
In this video, we cover:
The changing role of the IDE and the rise of agent managers in code generation.
Overcoming team bottlenecks in code review and CI/CD test execution execution loops.
Why "agent coverage" and context integration are the next big tech stack metrics.
Building a bulletproof software portfolio through permissionless open-source contributions.
The critical difference between outsourcing intelligence versus outsourcing understanding.
This episode is for software engineers, tech leads, and computer science students looking to future-proof their careers and reset their ambitions in the era of autonomous engineering agents.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:40 - Code Review Is Software Engineering's Biggest Bottleneck
00:01:57 - How Amazon and Big Tech Police AI-Generated Code
00:02:55 - Horizontal vs Vertical Scaling of AI Engineering
00:04:37 - Why "No Code Reviews" Might Be the Answer
00:05:22 - Engineering Environments That Give Agents Feedback
00:06:46 - Why the Harness Matters More Than the Model
00:07:21 - When Spec-Driven Development Failed and TDD Worked
00:10:06 - Stop Hooks, Ralph Loops, and Automated Feedback
00:11:30 - The Guardrails That Gave the Most Value
00:14:00 - Architectural Constraints That Keep AI Code Sane
00:15:07 - What Remains a Human Responsibility
00:17:33 - Why All the Hard Work Moves Upfront Now
00:18:47 - The Incredible Skill Junior Engineers Should Learn
00:20:26 - AI Burnout: Why Engineers Are Exhausted
00:22:42 - Cognitive Surrender: Letting the Agent Take Over
00:23:25 - The Hand Grenade Problem with AI at Work
00:24:08 - Outsourcing Code Review to AI Itself
00:26:39 - Teams That Fully Adopted Spec-Driven Development
00:29:01 - Can You Rebuild Software From Tests Alone?
00:30:27 - How to Experiment and Stay Ahead
00:33:15 - Spying on What Subagents Tell Each Other
00:33:59 - Step One: How to Start with Guardrails
00:36:08 - Data Mining Your Session Logs for Patterns
00:37:00 - Stuck With One Harness? Here's What to Do
00:38:28 - The One Experiment to Run This Week
#SoftwareEngineering #AIAgents #GoogleDeepMind