The highest-paid people in software were never paid for typing code

They are the people closest to the decisions that matter. Companies don't pay a premium for code itself. They pay for three things:

• Proximity to revenue

• Control over critical systems

• Responsibility when things go wrong

Coding is the delivery mechanism. A developer who implements a specification and a developer who defines the specification may write equally good code. But they carry completely different levels of business impact.

AI is making that difference impossible to ignore. As implementation becomes cheaper, the value shifts upward — toward people who can define problems, set system boundaries, make trade-offs, and take ownership of outcomes.

The question is no longer just: "Can you build this?". It's: "Should this be built? How should it work? What risks are acceptable? And what happens if it fails?"

This doesn't mean software jobs disappear. It means two roles that often shared the same title are starting to separate:

• The person who executes decisions.

• And the person who makes them.

Curious how engineers are thinking about this shift:

As AI handles more of the building, what skills will define the next generation of top software careers?