InMobi CEO Might be Right About AI Doing 80% of Coding Jobs
AI coding tools have been both a boon and a bane for software engineers and developers. While many have managed to upskill themselves with AI and use the tools to multiply their output, some have expressed concerns about its impact on their jobs. Amidst this, Naveen Tewari, founder & CEO of InMobi, has fuelled the fire. Tewari sounded an alarm over the future of software engineering jobs, predicting that AI will automate most coding tasks within the next two years. “I think my software engineers will go away. They will not have jobs in two years,” he said while speaking at the LetsVenture event last week. He further revealed that InMobi is on track to achieve 80% automation in software coding by the end of this year. “My CTO will deliver 80% automation in software coding by the end of this year. We have already achieved 50%. The codes created by the machine are faster and better, and they fix themselves.” He urged professionals to adapt, warning that even specialised jobs are at risk. “Upgrade yourself, don’t ask me to upgrade you. Because this is survival. The world underneath you is shifting.” InMobi has been aggressively integrating AI across its operations. Glance, its consumer tech platform, recently partnered with Google Cloud to develop generative AI solutions. In September, the SoftBank-backed firm secured $100 million in debt financing from MARS Growth Capital to accelerate AI adoption. But, Is He Right? Social media has been filled with people reacting negatively to Tewari’s comments. While calling out the problems in InMobi’s software stack, including bloatware and bugs, developers on various platforms do not agree with Tewari’s comments. They say he is just jumping on the bandwagon of commenting on AI taking over jobs. There have been several reports of companies using AI coding tools internally, leading them to rely less on the engineers. Following the AI boom after ChatGPT, companies have been trying to call themselves AI companies. Many are adopting AI models or partnering with AI companies to implement them in the workplace. While Indian companies were initially hesitant, AI use is now becoming more accepted, and there is a shift towards in-house development instead of relying on existing market solutions. Recently, a full-stack developer working in a product-based firm highlighted how the teams have been using AI tools extensively and have also built an in-house extension of VS Code to integrate into ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. The tool also has access to the company’s entire codebase. Compensation for software developers has increased, but only for the senior developers. The number of coder openings has reduced over the years following the hiring boom after 2020. “The middle-class engineer is dying. And they’re dying because they’re not needed anymore,” said Greg Isenberg, CEO of Late Checkout. “We have product builders who happen to code. Armed with AI, they ship entire products in days.” It seems like many companies do not need these developers anymore. While speaking with AIM, the head of operations of a firm setting up its GCC in Bengaluru, on condition of anonymity, said that they aimed to hire around 150 engineers. The company aims to recruit engineers skilled in AI tools, and are capable of exhibiting productivity equivalent to five engineers. Product builders with AI are surplus, with frontier engineers being offered $500k and solo engineers outperforming teams with the help of AI tools. Projects are shipping in days, not months. A single developer can now accomplish what once required an entire team. Companies are streamlining their operations, reducing headcount, and redefining what it means to be a software engineer. Global Phenomenon In a 2023 interview with The Atlantic, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said, “A lot of people working on AI pretend that it’s only going to be good; it’s only going to be a supplement; and no one is ever going to be replaced.” “Jobs are definitely going to go away.” Gartner, the research and advisory firm, said in its October report that AI will spawn new roles in software engineering and operations through 2027, requiring 80% of the engineering workforce to upskill. This is similar to what Kunal Shah, the CEO of Cred, said earlier while explaining AI’s impact on professional competency. Shah compared AI copilots in coding to calculators in math: they can boost productivity but may also erode fundamental skills. He predicts that AI will dramatically alter the job market, leading to a sharp distinction between those who leverage AI and those who do not. Companies will eventually compensate AI-enabled employees differently as productivity gaps widen. “The metric that will soon matter the most is revenue per employee,” Shah stated. “If one engineer is 20x more productive because of AI, why would a company pay the same salary to someone who refuses to use AI?” This is increasingly coming true, and InMobi might be just one of them.
“We have already achieved 50%. The codes created by the machine are faster and better, and they fix themselves,” Naveen Tewari said.
"We have already achieved 50%. The codes created by the machine are faster and better, and they fix themselves,” Naveen Tewari said.
["AI in Coding", "Developers"]
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["AI", "ML", "generative AI", "ChatGPT", "OpenAI", "Aim", "RAG", "copilots", "TPU", "R"]
Mohit writes about AI in simple, explainable, and often funny words. He's especially passionate about chatting with those building AI for Bharat, with the occasional detour into AGI.