As AI-powered tools increasingly automate tasks like code generation, bug detection, and optimization, software engineers fear their roles may shift away from hands-on development toward higher level oversight, reducing the need for deep programming expertise. However, this shift also presents opportunities for engineers to evolve their skill sets, focusing more on AI integration, data-driven decision-making, and managing complex systems, thus staying relevant in an AI-augmented future.

Our guest on today’s Steering Engineering Podcast, Cat Hicks, discusses key findings and insights from her research, including a set of thriving factors for software engineering leaders to promote and anti-thriving factors to avoid.

AI-augmented software engineering and practices are becoming common as more companies pilot them. However, the differentiating effects of AI is based on the skill sets of the engineers using them. In today’s episode of the Steering Engineering Podcast, we talk to Dave Micko about how software engineering leaders are trying to make AI-augmented engineers move from ideation to value creation.

Dave Micko is a Senior Director Analyst in Gartner’s software engineering leadership research group. Dave helps software engineering leaders with practices, methods and patterns for effective software engineering.

In this special episode of Gartner’s Steering Engineering Podcast series, we sit down with Howard Dodd to discuss some highlights from this year’s Gartner Applications Summit keynote, featuring a novel approach to AI and to managing its impact on our organizations.

Howard Dodd is a Senior Director, Analyst in Gartner’s software engineering practice. He helps software and senior technology leaders create strategies to manage and reduce technical debt while modernizing their enterprise applications and systems. He specializes in integrating concepts from enterprise architecture, software development, application architectures and software economics into application. Recommended Reading has moved out of the Google Doc canvas. Please use the Add-On or the Item Detail page to edit your Recommended Reading.

In this episode of the Steering Engineering Podcast, we explore how emerging AI technologies, such as AI code assistants, are reshaping the landscape of software design and development. Our focus is on how engineers are transitioning from hands-on coding to roles that more closely resemble that of an engineering manager. We examine the implications of generative AI for software engineering education, on-the-job training, roles/responsibilities, and career development.

Charity Majors is an operations and database engineer, “sometimes” engineering manager, author and CTO at Honeycomb. Charity was a production engineering manager at Facebook and spent several years working on Parse. She also spent several years at Linden Lab, working on the infrastructure and databases that power Second Life. Charity is the co-author of O’Reilly’s Database Reliability Engineering and author of "Observability Engineering: Achieving Production Excellence.” She loves free speech, free software, and single malt scotch.

Software engineering leaders embrace challenges — by nature. We want to build everything! But when should we not? Budget constraints, sure. But what are the other factors, and how can software engineering leaders know when pushback?

Gartner Distinguished VP Tina Nunno joins the conversations in this episode of the Steering Engineering Podcast on the what, when, and how of “saying no.” We anticipate a lively conversation about pushing back, power dynamics, and misconceptions about leadership in the software engineering world.

Tina Nunno is a Distinguished VP and Gartner Fellow in Gartner’s Executive Leadership Research Group. Tina is a recognized thought leader, publishing extensively on working with the board of directors, and executive leadership dynamics.

Most companies now offer remote work options to attract and retain talent, acknowledging its importance for work-life balance and productivity. However, while working remotely, some developers report lower satisfaction with certain developer experience attributes that appear to benefit from face-to-face interaction with peers. Does this mean your developers hate working from home? Not necessarily. In this episode of the Steering Engineering Podcast, we examine key findings from a recent survey of 500 developers about their satisfaction with 17 critical attributes of their developer experience.

Raveena Gandhi is a Gartner Principal Quantitative Researcher for the Software Engineering Leaders Peer and Practitioner Research Team. Raveena advises or leads quantitative research initiatives, ensuring data collection, analysis, and clear communication of results that directly address client needs.

Brian Minning is a Gartner Director on the Software Engineering Peer and Practitioner Research Team. Brian’s research is focused on best practice strategies for software and digital product delivery, software engineering talent management, and software engineering organizational design and leadership.

Software engineering leaders must take a holistic stance on what generative AI can do for software development versus the current, market-leader driven view of short-term gains and benefits. In this second half of a two-part series of the Steering Engineering Podcast, co-hosts Danny Brian and Brent Stewart explore predictions with Frank O’Connor, a Senior Director, Analyst and author of Predicts 2024: Generative AI Is Reshaping Software Engineering.

Frank O'Connor is a Senior Director Analyst in Gartner’s software design and development team. He helps CxOs and software engineering leaders to tackle modern-day challenges and develop successful technology and people strategies.