I recently watched an interesting interview with John Ousterhout, the author of A Philosophy of Software Design The interview begins by exploring how AI tools are evolving and their potential to transform software engineering. One key takeaway is that AI will likely take over many low-level coding tasks. As a result, the importance of software design is only going to grow. What really stood out to me was Ousterhout’s point that as AI handles more of the implementation details, the responsibility for designing clear, scalable, and maintainable systems will become even more critical for developers.

People in the tech industry are often criticized for their lack of “soft skills.” I don’t know about other industries, but working in tech, I find this to be true and I’m not immune to this either. A common example of this are online forums (ex: StackOverflow), where developers may swiftly mark your question for closure or down vote it. You’re lucky if they specify the reason for their decision.