Surviving the job market as AI powered techn-functional software engineer
Harsh Market Condition for Software Engineer in the era of AI
The market is shifting. Like or not, AI (artificial intelligence) changing how organization perceive information technology implications to their business. In the era of COVID, digitalization was a booming and suddeny increase the demand of software engineer in the industry (tech summer) because mankind was realizing that they can work from anywhere without physical presence through collaborative tools like microsoft teams, skype, zoom or google meet. It changed the working culture and lifestyle. It was the golden era for software engineer. They (SE) become valueable asset for company and most of them are getting big paid.
Software engineer role is not erased, but completely rewritten.
Fast forward to 2026, the perception was changed again. AI is reinventing the software engineering. Its a bitter truth for us. Nowdays company is start to realize that software engineer is replaceable”resources”. due to the AI especially for small to medium complexity systems. If they require 10 software engineer staff to maintain and develop the system, now with the help of agentic AI that specialize for software development like claude code, 3 developers are enough. What a harsh reality.
AI Disruption Implications for Tech Company
Not even the biggest COTS(commerical off the shelf, basically ready-made software solution) ERP vendor like SAP, Oracle, Workday could survive the disruption of AI. There is trend where many company who use COTS ERP to start creating a custom developed SAP surroundigs system which is integrated to the COTS ERP. The core still within COTS ERP, but new use cases or improvement is now focused on custom developed software that is cheaper. Note that the ERP business logic can be replicated and implemented through AI. Not surprised if somedayin the far-future companies decide to completely (or partially) ditch COTS ERP as they can make their “clone” which tailored specifically for their business process.
The effect is more brutal for technology consulting company who offer custom app development and SAP implementation services. Their customer is already started to try agentic AI to maintain and develop their new/existing system (not all of them, especially the custom developed one) due to the low entry barrier for agentic AI implementation for software engineering which resulting in the decrease of custom development services demand.
How to Survive Consulting Market as Software Engineer
Before defining survival strategy, its important to understand the current project hunting situation in consutling world.
- Less system implementation project, more functional consulting project.
- Tech consulting company is now doing engineering (mechanical, electrical, robotics, chemical, etc) project.
- Aggresive timeline with minimum headcount to stay competitive.
- Software engineer is no longer the “main character of tech consulting company”
- High employee turnover
— What a harsh situation, its now beyond tech winter but more like tech “storm”.
Software engineer need to adapt in terms of skill and mindset to survive consulting world as their role is being rewritten.
Accept that no employer will paid us to configure API, create boilerplate or create CRUD system. Software engineer role is now rwritten towards fixing complex system problem (especially at design area).
Survive AI-distrupted Job market
Mindset Shift & genAI based Workflow Transformation are need to survive the job market by becoming techno-functional software engineer
| Survival Strategy | Priority | Purposes |
|---|---|---|
| Rebranding from engineer to solution architect | P2 | A solution architect is connecting the dots between IT and functionality. It will give higher chance to land a project |
| Become comb-shaped software engineer | P1 | Expand the expertise beyond just software engineering. start to learn & understand business domain. |
| (backup plan) shift to system architecture | P3 | Instead of focus on programming skill upskilling, gear ourself with system architecture as AI is almost great on code implementation (still require supervision). however AI can’t make FIT and Correct architectural design. |
| Incorporate AI tools to improve productivity. | P4 | Befriend with AI, they could help speed up task completion. software engineer need to work hand in hand with AI by closly supervising it and wrote good prompt |
| Keep your heads up! | P0! | Instead of grieving on the harsh reality, shift the energy towards networking, updating CV on linked in, create showcase project, up skilling on system architecture, learn business domain & create digital product. |
Note: these are based on my personal experience work on consulting company from 2017 until now (july 2026) . it can’t be generalized for all consulting organization.
Below are the strategies that i can think of to survive the internal project hunting and harsh job market (incase headcount reduction is finally happening).
The Rise of Techno-Functional Consultant
Software engineering is now becoming a commodities. They are not just competing with fellow software engineer but also with specialized agentic AI for software development. The advancement of AI might further reduce the needs of software engineer in terms of headcount (not erasing the complete demand) as they become more efficient and on-point.
In contrast, the number of functional consultant is not as many as software engineer. Even before the LLM based AI disruption, only small amount of experienced functional consultant are available on the market especially on super specific niche domain like oil and gas, energy and engineering.
The culture is now changed, organization tends to hire more functional consultant and have AI with lean team of software engineer to make it happen as its more cheaper for the project cost especially for medium complexity projects which mostly rely on the CRUD (create,read, update and delete) transaction functionality.
Hence, instead of dwelling, we must learn and experience business domain.
Is it even possible? yes, with proper strategy, learning plan and apply SWOT analysis into ourself. Of course software engineer can’t learn how to drill earth surface and extract the gas into the well as it require years of engineering study. However, there are certain area where software engineering can master the domain expertise especially on non-engineering area.
Self learning might not be enough, we have to experience it directly by doing the digital transformation projects on that area. It could be from actual client project or we partnered up with our friends who on on that area/industry.
Be Friend with AI: Perceive AI as a Tools, Not a Threat.
As techno functional or also known as solution architect, we have to utilize all AI tools as much as possible to create the best system design with high interoperability, data integrity, scalability, reliability & security and also aligned with the business process flow.
Below are the AI tools that suitable for solution architect in the era of AI disruption.
- github copilot/cursor IDE - allow AI to check the whole code repository to find architectural issue, code smell, performance issue.
- claude code - agenticAI for coding/software development
- eraser - AI for generating technical architecure diagram
Those three AI tools can be combined for both SI and consulting projects. Productivity can be improved drastically by maximizing the potential use of AI tools. Each AI has their own specialization. Not every AI tools is excel on image processing. For example: gemini is good to generate images (vector/illustration) but bad when generating slides (not as good as chatgpt).
