Something changed in software engineering, and I do not think we have fully named it yet.
For years, the job was mostly about writing code directly. Then autocomplete got better. Then chat-based coding assistants arrived. Now the workflow is shifting again: we describe goals, hand off chunks of work to agents, inspect their output, tighten the tests, and decide what gets merged.
That is not the same job with a faster keyboard. It is a different shape of work. I would call it agentic engineering.
The engineer is becoming a director
Agentic engineering does not mean the engineer disappears. If anything, it makes the engineer's judgment more visible.
