Microsoft CPO APARNA CHENNAPRAGADA Do not buy the idea that coding is going out.
“Many people think:” Oh, don’t bother studying computer science or coding is dead “, and I am fundamentally disagreed,” said Chennapragada, product manager of the experience and devices technology giant, on “Lenny’s podcast. “”
“If anything, I think we have always had increasingly high layers of abstraction in the programming,” she added.
Despite the fears that AI can finally Make unrelevant software engineers – or at least materially Reduce job openings In the field – Chennapragada believes that AI adds only another layer of abstraction in the existing programming process.
“We are no longer programming in assembly,” she said. “Most of us do not even program C, then you are a little increasingly high layers of abstraction. So, for me, it will be ways to tell the computer what to do, right? It will be just at a much higher level of abstraction, which is great.”
Chennapragada said it was possible that in the future we think of software engineers more like software operators, but the role itself was It is unlikely to disappear.
“There will be a more software operator order,” she said. “Instead of” Swes “, maybe we will have” SOS “, but that does not mean that you do not understand IT, and it is a way of thinking, and it is a mental model. So I am strongly disagreeing with the whole,” the coding is dead “.
As for the fate of project managerswho are subjects, like many other intermediate managers, in Big Tech’s “Super flat“Chennapragada is expecting they last, but with modified responsibilities. The taste, she said, will be more important than ever.
“In a certain sense, if you look at it, there will be a supply of ideas, a massive increase in the supply of ideas in prototypes, which is great,” said Chennapragada. “This increases the soil, but it also increases the ceiling. In a certain sense, how do you burst in these times when you have to make sure that it is something that rises above noise?”
Chennapragada did not respond to a request for comments from Business Insider.
The AI facilitates the realization of an idea, she said, which means that the scrubbing through the overabundance of ideas will be particularly important-so project managers will have to develop more what Cennapragada calls “the production of taste and publishing” instincts.
“In a world where the supply of ideas, the supply of prototypes becomes even more like an order of magnitude, it should be thought:” What is the editing function here? “” She said.
Because it is so much easier to start, Chennapragada says that she has observed less instinct to turn automatically to a project manager for approval. Although the final approval becomes more important than ever, she thinks that PMs must gain the right to judge.
“There is an interesting side effect that I observe in the startups I recommend, companies, and even in companies, that there was more rootstock, I would say, in terms of similar,` `oh, we should ask the chief of product what they think, ” said Chennapragada.” And again, there is a role for this publishing function, but you have to win it now.