Artificial Intelligence is changing the way we develop software far beyond the ways in which codes.
Theory of Constraints dictates that removal of the “coding” blocker (if coding even was the rate limit step) means that bottleneck will shift elsewhere: decision making speed, product discovery, and organizational level dependencies1.
Platform engineering is critical to success
The Changing Software Engineer Role
The software role is changing (as of mid 2026) with the explosion of AI tools and usage in coding. This has knock effects for Product roles. Traditional SDLC roles might be visualized as so:
One propsed model is that Engineering role becomes the middle layer between automatic agentic coding and the delivery layer1:
1.
Vella, A. Finding Comfort in the Uncertainty. https://annievella.com/posts/finding-comfort-in-the-uncertainty/ (2026).