Has Big Tech Adopted AI-Native SDLC?

In this special “ask me anything” episode of Pragmatic Engineer podcast, I am in the hot seat facing questions sent in by subscribers that are read out by guest Volodymyr Giginiak, CTO and cofounder of Wordsmith AI, a legal tech startup (note: I’m an investor). I tackle your questions on the software industry, AI, hiring, engineering organizations, career growth, the business model of the Pragmatic Engineer, and more. We also discuss where software engineering is headed, and I offer advice on some specific situations. Thanks to everyone who sent questions! — Brought to you by: • Antithesis – verify your system’s correctness without human review or traditional integration tests – and avoid bugs or outages https://antithesis.com/pragmatic — *The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:* • State of the software engineering job market in 2026 https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/state-of-the-job-market-2026 • The impact of AI on software engineers in 2026: key trends https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/the-impact-of-ai-on-software-engineers-2026 • How 10 tech companies choose the next generation of dev tools https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/measuring-ai-dev-tools • The reality of tech interviews https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/the-reality-of-tech-interviews — *Where to find Gergely Orosz:* • X: https://x.com/GergelyOrosz • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gergelyorosz/ • Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/gergely.pragmaticengineer.com • Newsletter and blog: https://www.pragmaticengineer.com/ *Where to find Volodymyr Giginiak:* • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/giginiak • Newsletter: https://legalengineer.substack.com — *In this episode, we cover:* 00:00 Intro 01:56 From Uber to writing 09:22 AI-native SDLC 14:00 AI and hiring 19:06 Engineers currently thriving 22:18 Junior roles 24:44 Meta’s war mode 27:54 AI at Big Tech vs. startups 36:46 Tech debt 41:36 Types of engineering managers 44:40 Measuring AI productivity 48:30 The value of CS degrees 50:53 AI at Pragmatic Engineer 56:09 Future-proofing your career 1:01:36 The EU job market 1:03:55 Making money as a creator 1:08:20 What’s next for The Pragmatic Engineer 1:09:27 Bunq and Pollen 1:13:38 Spotting trends 1:14:33 Book updates 1:15:20 Favorite books & tech products 1:17:13 What won’t change in engineering — See the transcript and other references from the episode at https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/.