Fundamentals of Software Engineering In the age of AI

Agentic coding assistants and editor based AI chat interfaces are altering the development workflow leading some to proclaim the end of software engineering. Is it time to explore other careers? Not so fast, the rumors of our demise are greatly exaggerated! While these tools can boost productivity, to be used effectively, developers still need to master the fundamentals of the software craft. Modern software development demands more than just coding proficiency—it requires navigating an increasingly AI-augmented landscape.

Nathaniel Schutta

Nathaniel T. Schutta is a software architect and Java Champion focused on cloud computing, developer happiness and building usable applications. A proponent of polyglot programming, Nate has written multiple books, appeared in countless videos and many podcasts. He’s also a seasoned speaker who regularly presents at worldwide conferences, meetups, universities, and user groups. In addition to his day job, Nate is an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches students to embrace (and evaluate) technical change. Driven to rid the world of bad presentations, he coauthored the book Presentation Patterns with Neal Ford and Matthew McCullough, and he also published Thinking Architecturally and Responsible Microservices available from O’Reilly. His latest book, Fundamentals of Software Engineering, is currently available in early release.

Dan Vega

Dan Vega is a Spring Developer Advocate at VMware Tanzu. He has been developing software for the web for over 20 years and his superpower is problem-solving. Dan is a blogger, YouTuber, course creator, and speaker. He is a lifelong learner and his passion is sharing his knowledge with the developer community. Dan lives near Cleveland Ohio with his beautiful wife and 2 daughters. When he isn’t writing code or teaching he enjoys spending time with his family, lifting weights, running, or reading a good book.