Software Engineer Title Will Go Away Says Boris Cherny

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No more SWE in the job market? Imagine a world where writing computer code becomes as outdated as using a typewriter. According to Boris Cherny, the creator of Anthropic’s Claude Code, that world is arriving this year.

Claude Code Creator Thinks ‘SWE’ Role is Going Away

In a recent interview with Y Combinator’s “Lightcone” podcast, Boris Cherny made a bold prediction that the job title “software engineer” will start to disappear soon. 

Cherny said:

“I think we are going to start to see the title software engineer go away. And I think it's just going to be maybe builder, maybe product manager, maybe we'll keep the title as kind of a vestigial thing, but the work that people do, it's not just going to be coding.”

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Right now, when most people hear “software engineer,” they imagine someone sitting in front of a computer, writing lines of code all day. That has been the core identity of the role for decades. But as we know, the traditional idea of a “software engineer” is changing fast.

Boris believes that the job title “software engineer” might slowly fade away. Not because coding disappears. Instead, people might be called “builders” or “product managers,” or something more general. 

Even if companies keep the title “software engineer,” it may just be a leftover label

“Its software engineers are also going to be writing specs. They are going to be talking to users, like this thing that we are starting to see right now in our team, where engineers are very much generalists and every single function on our team codes like our PM's code, our designers' code, our EM codes, our like everyone, our finance guy codes like everyone on our team codes. We are going to start to see this everywhere.”

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The new ‘software engineer’ will focus more on writing specifications, talking to users to understand their needs, and helping shape the overall product experience. 

In a traditional setup:

• Engineers write code
• Designers design
• Product managers plan
• Finance handles budgets

But in this new model, everyone is more of a generalist.

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 That means people are not limited to one narrow function. They understand the product as a whole. They can jump in and contribute technically when needed. 

This shift is largely driven by AI. When AI tools can handle complex coding tasks quickly, writing code becomes less of a rare skill and more of an accessible tool. That frees up time for humans to focus on creativity and problem-solving.

When AI Writes 100% of the Code

In a post on X, he revealed that he hasn’t written a single line of code by hand in over two months. 

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Instead, AI tools like Claude Code write everything for him. Even more remarkably, he shipped 22 code updates (called “pull requests”) in a single day, with every line generated by artificial intelligence.

He is not alone. 

At Anthropic, the company behind Claude, between 70% and 90% of all code is now AI-generated, for Claude Code specifically, about 90% of its own code is written by itself.

Adding context from Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang, who has said that coding itself is just one task of engineering and not the core purpose. Engineers should focus on solving problems rather than writing code.

To understand how widespread this shift is, consider that 4% of all public GitHub commits are currently authored by Claude Code. That might sound small, but analysts predict this number could jump to 20% or more by the end of 2026.

Bottom Line

If you are a student thinking about becoming a software engineer, should this news scare you? Not necessarily. But it does mean the job will look very different from what it was even five years ago.

According to a 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, 84% of programmers already use AI tools. However, only 31% use full coding agents like Claude Code, meaning adoption is still in early stages.

The skills that will matter most in this new world aren’t necessarily about memorizing programming languages or syntax. Instead, future tech workers will need:

• Strong problem-solving abilities: Understanding what needs to be built and why
• Communication skills: Translating user needs into specifications that AI can work from
• Critical thinking: Spotting when AI makes mistakes or suggests poor solutions

As Cherny noted, Anthropic now hires “mostly generalists” who can work across different areas, rather than specialists in specific programming languages.

The transformation happening in software development is likely just the beginning.