--- schema: 1 type: video title: >- "The engineer of the future is the person who chooses what is worth doing." — Addy Osmani, Anthropic description: >- For his closing keynote, Addy Osmani explores the evolving role of software engineers in the age of AI agents. He argues that as coding tasks become increasingly automated, the true value of an engineer shifts from mere code production to accountability, judgment, and system ownership. https://addyosmani.com/ https://x.com/addyosmani/status/2074927530482835916 Timestamps 0:00 Introduction and the human side of engineering 1:46 Rebundling roles and ownership of systems 2:34 Harnesses, loop engineering, and software factories 3:34 The shift to answerability as an engineering requirement 4:26 Reviewing AI-assisted code and organizational bottlenecks 5:55 Redefining leverage through human judgment 6:15 Alpha, decay, and the role of "taste" 8:49 Defining the modern software engineer 9:50 Risks to avoid: cognitive debt and surrender 11:51 Orchestration tax and system design 12:39 Accountability as the foundation for scaling 13:16 Career math: credibility vs. capability 14:13 High agency and the decision-making ladder 15:13 Defining the boundary between agents and humans 16:13 Operational rule: explain it or don't ship it 17:20 Future outlook: unlocking latent demand --- Watch along with the corrected transcript, summary, timestamps and resources on this talk's official AIE page: https://ai.engineer/talks/n97BCfyFIvw-the-engineer-of-the-future-is-the-person-who-is-able-to-choose-what-is-worth-doing-addy-osmani Join our upcoming AI Engineer conferences (see https://ai.engineer landing page): - AIEi Shanghai, November 5–6 — the first for meeting top Chinese labs and engineers - AIE CODE in SF, November 10–12 — the top AI Coding conference returns - AIEi Sydney, December 7–8 — the first AIEi run alongside NeurIPS 2026 in Sydney --- canonical: >- https://liquidgold.cc/channel/aidotengineer/explore/video/the-engineer-of-the-future-is-the-person-who-choose-a3c2ce650e8a markdown: >- https://liquidgold.cc/channel/aidotengineer/video/the-engineer-of-the-future-is-the-person-who-choose-a3c2ce650e8a.md llms: null parent: 'https://liquidgold.cc/channel/aidotengineer.md' channel: aidotengineer updated: '2026-10-24T07:49:11.725Z' language: null children: [] videoId: n97BCfyFIvw durationSeconds: 1106 publishedAt: '2026-07-14T17:16:43.000Z' searchChunks: - ordinal: 0 text: null startSeconds: 31 endSeconds: 110 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/n97BCfyFIvw?t=31' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 1 text: null startSeconds: 122 endSeconds: 155 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/n97BCfyFIvw?t=122' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 2 text: null startSeconds: 165 endSeconds: 222 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/n97BCfyFIvw?t=165' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 3 text: null startSeconds: 233 endSeconds: 266 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/n97BCfyFIvw?t=233' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 4 text: null startSeconds: 277 endSeconds: 358 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/n97BCfyFIvw?t=277' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 5 text: null startSeconds: 382 endSeconds: 394 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/n97BCfyFIvw?t=382' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 6 text: null startSeconds: 394 endSeconds: 539 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/n97BCfyFIvw?t=394' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 7 text: null startSeconds: 552 endSeconds: 599 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/n97BCfyFIvw?t=552' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 8 text: null startSeconds: 599 endSeconds: 609 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/n97BCfyFIvw?t=599' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 9 text: null startSeconds: 609 endSeconds: 718 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/n97BCfyFIvw?t=609' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 10 text: null startSeconds: 729 endSeconds: 763 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/n97BCfyFIvw?t=729' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 11 text: null startSeconds: 773 endSeconds: 805 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/n97BCfyFIvw?t=773' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 12 text: null startSeconds: 815 endSeconds: 857 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/n97BCfyFIvw?t=815' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 13 text: null startSeconds: 857 endSeconds: 868 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/n97BCfyFIvw?t=857' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 14 text: null startSeconds: 924 endSeconds: 937 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/n97BCfyFIvw?t=924' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 15 text: null startSeconds: 973 endSeconds: 984 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/n97BCfyFIvw?t=973' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 16 text: null startSeconds: 1040 endSeconds: 1052 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/n97BCfyFIvw?t=1040' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 17 text: null startSeconds: 1052 endSeconds: 1106 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/n97BCfyFIvw?t=1052' heldReason: rights --- # "The engineer of the future is the person who chooses what is worth doing." — Addy Osmani, Anthropic For his closing keynote, Addy Osmani explores the evolving role of software engineers in the age of AI agents. He argues that as coding tasks become increasingly automated, the true value of an engineer shifts from mere code production to accountability, judgment, and system ownership. https://addyosmani.com/ https://x.com/addyosmani/status/2074927530482835916 Timestamps 0:00 Introduction and the human side of engineering 1:46 Rebundling roles and ownership of systems 2:34 Harnesses, loop engineering, and software factories 3:34 The shift to answerability as an engineering requirement 4:26 Reviewing AI-assisted code and organizational bottlenecks 5:55 Redefining leverage through human judgment 6:15 Alpha, decay, and the role of "taste" 8:49 Defining the modern software engineer 9:50 Risks to avoid: cognitive debt and surrender 11:51 Orchestration tax and system design 12:39 Accountability as the foundation for scaling 13:16 Career math: credibility vs. capability 14:13 High agency and the decision-making ladder 15:13 Defining the boundary between agents and humans 16:13 Operational rule: explain it or don't ship it 17:20 Future outlook: unlocking latent demand --- Watch along with the corrected transcript, summary, timestamps and resources on this talk's official AIE page: https://ai.engineer/talks/n97BCfyFIvw-the-engineer-of-the-future-is-the-person-who-is-able-to-choose-what-is-worth-doing-addy-osmani Join our upcoming AI Engineer conferences (see https://ai.engineer landing page): - AIEi Shanghai, November 5–6 — the first for meeting top Chinese labs and engineers - AIE CODE in SF, November 10–12 — the top AI Coding conference returns - AIEi Sydney, December 7–8 — the first AIEi run alongside NeurIPS 2026 in Sydney --- Canonical: https://liquidgold.cc/channel/aidotengineer/explore/video/the-engineer-of-the-future-is-the-person-who-choose-a3c2ce650e8a · Channel: [AI Engineer](https://liquidgold.cc/channel/aidotengineer.md) > Search chunk text is held until public-source provenance is verified. ## Document chunks > Missing: no stored document chunks are available.