Anthropic CEO reveals career options for Indian students entering software and engineering roles
As AI systems take over more coding tasks, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says software and engineering careers are changing rather than disappearing. He advises Indian students to focus on design, decision making and human-centric work, which is slow to be replaced by AI.
As AI systems become more capable of writing code and handling routine technical tasks, students planning careers in software and engineering need to reevaluate where long-term opportunities may lie. This was the central topic of a recent conversation between Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and entrepreneur Nikhil Kamath, where Amodei talked at length about how AI could transform tech careers.
Amodei said AI models are likely to take over coding tasks before software engineering roles are replaced. “I think the coding is being finished first, or the coding is being done by the AI models first,” he said, distinguishing between writing code and the larger engineering work of deciding what to build and how the system should work. According to him, complete end-to-end automation of software engineering will take more time.
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Anthropic CEO reveals career options for Indian students entering software and engineering roles
To help students in India decide which skills to focus on, Amodei suggested looking beyond pure coding. He pointed out that design, understanding user demand and system-level thinking will continue to matter. “The elements of design or creating something that is useful to users, or knowing what the demand is, those things can still be present,” he said, even if AI handles most of the execution.
Amodei also talked about the idea of “comparative advantage” in an AI-powered workplace. Even a small human contribution can be valuable when combined with powerful AI systems. “Even if you’re only doing five percent of the work, that five percent gets over-amplified,” he said, explaining how people can become more productive by focusing on what they do best.
Beyond software roles, the Anthropic CEO revealed other areas that could provide greater stability. He said students should consider human-centered roles and tasks that involve the physical world, where context, regulation, and real-world interactions matter. He also pointed to the semiconductor sector as an example of an industry with strong tailwinds, noting that it combines physical engineering with long-term demand and is hard to automate quickly.
For aspiring founders and developers, Amodei gave a clear warning against building shallow products on top of AI models. “You shouldn’t just be a wrapper over an existing model,” he warned against apps that just provide a basic interface. Instead, he advised building businesses with strong “moats,” such as areas of expertise or depth that larger AI labs may not want or be able to replicate.
On education and skills, Amodei repeatedly stressed the importance of critical thinking. As AI systems more easily generate text, code, images and video, he warned it is becoming harder to tell what is real and what is not. “Critical thinking skills are going to be really important,” he said, adding that people need “street smarts to not get fooled” as synthetic materials become more common.
He also cautioned against careless use of AI tools, especially among students. Citing internal studies, Amodei said that using AI for coding could lead to de-skilling in some ways. “If people aren’t thoughtful in how they use things, de-skilling can absolutely happen,” he said, while careful use can still improve learning and productivity.
