🌅 The Dawn of the Renaissance Developer

🌅 The Dawn of the Renaissance Developer

It’s that time of the year. AWS Community gets ready for the event of the year: re:Invent. And Werner publishes his tech predictions [1]. Like every year, a densely packed piece with loads of gems in it. This year Werner came up with 5 major themes, if I didn’t miscount. I covered the first one in my initial post [2].

The second one is about:

🎨 “The Dawn of the Renaissance Developer”

That’s a vivid discussion at the moment between colleagues and customers alike. Is vibe coding the future? AI Agents taking over the work from human developers?

Werner argues that generative AI will not make developers obsolete but will elevate them into “renaissance developers,” akin to historical polymaths like Leonardo da Vinci who blended art, science, and engineering. Past technological shifts, he argues — compiled high-level languages displacing most (though not all) hand-written assembly, or cloud managed services and automation tooling absorbing operations work — lowered entry barriers, expanded opportunities, and amplified the need for human creativity, curiosity, and systems thinking rather than eliminating expertise.

Developers, he argues, must now act as modern polymaths, integrating domain knowledge, business constraints, and nuanced human priorities that today’s AI does not capture on its own, while owning code quality, safety, and communication for both humans and machines.

🕰️ 𝗠𝘆 𝗝𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗘𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

Some of you who know me better know that I’ve been around for quite a while already.

I still programmed in assembler in the very early days, earned some money with relatively low-level C-programming for embedded mobile devices, before higher-level programming languages became the tool of choice. At each step on the ladder of abstraction, questions arose: 𝗗𝗼 𝗜 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲? 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗮𝗯𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀, 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗹𝗲𝗳𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗲? 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸? - 𝗦𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆.

During my career, I’ve worked in teams and companies of different sizes. Right when I left startups - and just had finished university - for an enterprise company, there was a big wave of off-shoring work (and then later near-shoring). I had brilliant times with teams in China, India, Romania, and Poland. Every time a project or task was handed over, questions came up: 𝗗𝗼 𝗜 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲? 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗺𝗮𝘇𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸, 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗹𝗲𝗳𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗲? 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸? - 𝗦𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆.

💡 𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘀 𝗜𝘁𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳

I can bring up even more major points of disruption. Always the same questions came up. And in my experience the answers have always been 𝗬𝗘𝗦!!! Yes, the prior knowledge still mattered. Yes, there was enough work left. Yes, it actually worked.

My bet is that it’s no different with the current technology of Agentic AI. Amazing technology. I’m currently doing a longer-term experiment with Agentic Coding in a pet project. Here too, the answers so far are yes — early impressions from one pet project, not a controlled study. Some voices from my network characterize the new way of building as “𝗙𝗲𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗿” and “𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗶𝘂𝘀𝗲𝘀 - 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗻” - I agree with both views.

I’ll share more about my experiments in the near future.

Werner talks about the renaissance developer in his brilliant keynote at re:Invent [3]. Highly recommended to watch!

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄?