The Agentic Coding Wake-Up Call

Our industry is changing—you'd have to have your head under a rock not to see it.

While agentic coding started over two years ago, we've seen a fundamental shift in software development in just the last six months, with tools like Claude Code and other agentic development platforms revolutionizing how software is built. Software Engineers are now running 10+ AI agents simultaneously on complex projects. Agents are coding overnight while you sleep.  It's become clear this isn't a passing trend.

Here's the reality: If we don't adapt, we face a clear threat to our relevance as engineers. The wake up call is this: we can't keep doing things the way we've always done them. Every one of us has to learn these new tools, understand them deeply, and leverage them to grow.  While this has always been true to some extent, it is even more urgent today.

This matters for your career, with your current company or wherever your next role takes you. You need to keep your skills current with state-of-the-art technology. It's changing faster than ever.

Don't be threatened. Dive in.

The teams I work with here at Snowplow are already seeing significant results—from internal tools for AI-assisted operations (automating or getting rid of toil work has never been so easy!), to vibe coding with agentic tools like Claude, Cursor, Antigravity and the likes.  We're seeing real productivity gains emerging from experimentation with new ways of working, and new ways of building software.

If you're doing the same things today that you were doing six or twelve months ago, consider this your wake-up call. The world is changing, and if you don't change with it, you'll be left behind.

Let me repeat - Don't be threatened.  This is on all of us to learn and grow.

There are many new tools, many new ways of building.  My ask to my teams and tech leads is to experiment, learn, and most importantly share. If you've found approaches that are working, start socializing them. We're all going through this journey together. Spread the word. 

Agentic coding is here. Our jobs are changing. Let's change and grow with them.

John Piekos, SVP Engineering. Snowplow.io

(This is a slightly polished up version of my closing remarks at my Snowplow Engineering Q4 and FY review last week, February 10, 2026 - thankfully I had a Zoom transcript to work with.  2025 was a great year for my team, I have amazing engineers who are on a journey to learning new ways of building amazing products.)

Note: this was not written by an LLM, Sorry Claude, you were not needed for this post, don't be upset!