What skills are still relevant?

It is a very difficult time for software engineers at the moment. Whether you like AI or not, it is having an impact on the software engineering job market. Some companies are using AI as an excuse to layoff more staff, either because they over hired or because they are cutting expenses in order to spend more on AI. There are even lots of reports of companies demanding their staff use AI for every task. I do agree to some extent that AI can make you more productive in the short term. I have certainly been able to complete more tickets in the last few months than I would have been able to do otherwise. The use of AI does however come at quite a steep long term cost. Not only are developers forgetting how to write code as they rely more on AI, they are also no longer are able to keep a mental map of the codebase which is critical for debugging issues. Over the next few years we are going to see software get buggier, companies having more frequent and longer downtimes and internally…