Eirini Kalliamvakou investigates how the rise of AI, especially GitHub Copilot, is shifting developers’ roles from code producers to creative directors, emphasizing strategic delegation and verification.

The New Identity of a Developer in the AI Era

Overview

The landscape of software development is undergoing significant change with the rapid adoption of AI tools and agents. Developers are increasingly moving from being traditional code producers to creative directors who orchestrate and verify work through AI-powered workflows.

Key Research Findings

Eirini Kalliamvakou, leading research initiatives at GitHub, conducted interviews with developers to capture how AI is impacting their identities and day-to-day work. Over four years of AI adoption, trends indicate:

  • Developers using advanced AI tools (like GitHub Copilot) are shifting towards roles that emphasize orchestration, verification, and strategic decision-making.
  • Workflow stages evolve from skepticism through exploration to collaboration and strategic orchestration with AI agents.

Developer Experience Stages

  • AI Skeptic: Cautious, low tolerance for iteration/errors.
  • AI Explorer: Builds trust through quick wins and experimentation.
  • AI Collaborator: Co-creates with AI tools; iterative approach.
  • AI Strategist: Orchestrates multi-agent workflows, guides architecture, and deeply validates outputs.

Workflow Changes

Developers at the strategist stage spend less time manually coding and more time on:

  • Defining project intent and requirements
  • Guiding and supervising AI agents
  • Resolving ambiguity and setting standards
  • Validating and verifying outputs
  • GitHub Copilot Usage: 80% of new developers on GitHub in 2025 used Copilot within their first week, signaling strong early adoption and confidence.
  • TypeScript Surge: TypeScript became the #1 language on GitHub (Aug 2025), chosen for its clarity and structure, which benefits AI code generation and verification.
  • Copilot Agent Impact: Over a million pull requests merged through GitHub’s Copilot agent within five months of launch, showcasing real-world delegation and verification.

Skills Defining Future Developers

1. Understanding the Work

  • Building AI fluency: Grasping strengths and limitations of various AI systems.
  • Retaining technical depth: Knowledge of fundamentals enables evaluation of complex or hidden issues.
  • Product thinking: Translating user needs into system requirements.

2. Directing the Work

  • Effective delegation: Framing problems, decomposing tasks, providing clear context.
  • Collaborative orchestration: Iterative, feedback-driven agent interactions.
  • Architecture design: Setting boundaries and patterns to create a safe environment for agents.

3. Verifying the Work

  • Continuous calibration: Rigorous reviews, security checks, and validation.
  • Treating verification and testing as core, ongoing responsibilities.

Signals to Track Industry Change

  • Large-scale data (e.g., GitHub Octoverse) for macro-level adoption trends
  • Field research/interviews for qualitative signals
  • Open-source activity on platforms like GitHub

Participant Profile

  • 22 US-based software engineers recruited through Respondent.io
  • Criteria: Heavy AI usage, multiple AI tools, advanced AI-assisted development activity
  • Diverse backgrounds by company size and years of experience

Conclusion

Rather than displacing developer craft, AI adoption is prompting a reinvention. Skills in judgment, system design, and outcome responsibility are rising in importance. Developers evolving their identity are treating AI-powered delegation and verification as core elements of their role.

For further reading, see Annie Vella’s post on AI competency maps for engineers (link).

This post appeared first on “The GitHub Blog”. Read the entire article here