Maybe the Developer of the Future Will Be More About Product Than Code

I recently watched a video that made me stop and think about where the software development profession is heading.

It wasn't exactly a new idea for me. It was more like finally putting into words something I had already been noticing in my own day-to-day work.

I think the developer of the future will need to be increasingly close to product.

And I'm not saying every developer will become a Product Manager, or that knowing how to program will stop mattering. Quite the opposite.

I think programming will remain one of the most important tools a developer can have. The difference is that it may no longer be at the center of everything.

For a long time, a huge part of our job was turning an idea into code.

Build a screen.

Create a CRUD.

Build an API.

Connect a database.

Implement a business rule.

Today, with the AI tools we have, much of that has become significantly cheaper and faster.

And that trend seems likely to continue.

So an interesting question starts to emerge:

if writing code is becoming easier, what will differentiate a good developer?

For me, it starts with the ability to understand the problem.

Not just receive a task like "create a screen to register X", but understand why that screen needs to exist, who will use it, what problem it solves, and whether there is a better way to solve it.

That changes the way I see the profession quite a bit.

A developer who can take a problem, talk to the people experiencing it, understand the context, think through the solution, use AI to accelerate implementation, validate it with the user, and come back to improve the product ends up being much more complete than someone who simply receives requirements and turns all of them into code.

And maybe that's exactly where this "product developer" is emerging.

Someone who is still a developer, but understands that code is only one part of the product.

I've noticed this especially while working with systems that are very close to actual operations.

In industrial software, for example, there isn't much value in building a technically perfect feature if it doesn't solve the problem of the person working on the factory floor.

Sometimes the best technical solution isn't the best solution for the user.

And that difference isn't in the programming language, the framework, or the database.

It's in understanding the product.

AI makes this even more evident.

If I can ask an AI to create an API, build an interface, or implement a feature in a fraction of the time it would have taken before, my value starts to be much more related to what happens before and after the code.

What should we build?

Why should we build it?

How should we build it?

What are the trade-offs?

How do we know that it actually solved the problem?

And perhaps that last question is one of the most important ones.

Because it has become very easy to build things.

The hard part is still building the right thing.

This also changes what I think a developer should study.

Perhaps it makes less and less sense to spend years focusing exclusively on a single stack.

Of course, we still need to deeply understand the tools we use. A good developer needs to understand their code, architecture, and the technologies they put into production.

But they also need to understand a little about UX, product, business, infrastructure, security, observability, and communication.

Not necessarily to become an expert in everything.

But to be able to see the entire system.

I think that's one of the directions the profession is taking.

Not a future where "AI programs and developers disappear", but a future where the cost of producing software decreases and, as a consequence, knowing what is worth building becomes more important.

Maybe the developer of the future won't be the one who writes the most code.

Maybe it will be the one who can look at a problem, understand the context, turn it into a useful product, and use every tool available (including AI) to get there faster.

And honestly, I think that makes the profession even more interesting.