As artificial intelligence tools like GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT redefine how software is written, many in the tech industry have questioned whether traditional coding skills — especially at the entry-level — are becoming obsolete. GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke says junior developers are still essential, even as AI changes the landscape of software engineering.
In a recent interview with The Pragmatic Engineer, Dohmke offered a nuanced view of how AI is transforming the tech industry—one that acknowledges the disruption but also offers a measure of optimism.
Since taking the helm at GitHub in 2021, Dohmke has been at the center of Microsoft’s push to integrate artificial intelligence into the software development lifecycle, particularly through GitHub Copilot, the AI-powered coding assistant developed in partnership with OpenAI. As Copilot and other generative tools become central to engineering workflows, the pressure has mounted on engineers—especially those just entering the field—to adapt.
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“A Nice Balance” of Junior and Senior Talent
Amid fears that AI could render entry-level coding jobs obsolete, Dohmke emphasized the continued value of early-career developers.
“It’s lovely to see those folks that bring fresh ideas, a great amount of energy, the latest learnings from college and university, and often a different, diverse background into the company,” he said. “We are excited about having this kind of both junior and senior population in the company.”
He added that junior engineers often bring new ideas to the table and are more likely to challenge old ways of thinking—something that is essential in an industry undergoing such profound technological shifts.
Prompting: The New Core Skill
Dohmke also made it clear that while the demand for engineering talent remains, the required skill set is changing fast. Chief among those changes is the emergence of prompt engineering—the ability to craft effective instructions for AI tools.
“If you want to get a job in a tech company very soon, you’re going to be asked to show your prompting skills, your Copilot skills,” he said.
GitHub, like many tech companies, is beginning to include these skills in its hiring assessments. This shift reflects the new reality where engineers are not expected to write every line of code themselves but must know how to collaborate with AI systems to achieve outcomes faster and more efficiently.
AI Will Transform, Not Eliminate, Engineering Jobs
As debates around AI’s impact on employment heat up, Dohmke’s comments strike a more hopeful tone than some of his peers in the industry. While others, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, have warned that AI could replace half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within five years, Dohmke sees the changes differently.
Rather than eliminating jobs outright, he believes AI will reshape what engineering work looks like, allowing human developers to shift their focus toward higher-order thinking and system-level design.
“The goal of the future engineer is no longer to run it all from scratch,” Dohmke said. “The goal is to combine their prompting skills and agents, open-source libraries, into getting that problem solved much faster than they could have two or three years ago.”
He stressed that AI will become just another part of the engineering toolkit—an accelerant rather than a replacement. Even in the future when AI agents become more capable and autonomous, engineers will still be needed to provide direction, validate results, and manage complexity.
According to Dohmke, the core of engineering lies not in knowing a specific language or framework, but in the ability to think structurally about problems—skills that will remain relevant no matter how the tools evolve.
“You’ve got to have engineering skills. You’ve got to have developed craft,” he said. “You need senior people that know how to build large-scale systems. You need people that take large complex problems and break them down into smaller problems.”
In this view, coding is just one aspect of a broader engineering mindset. While AI may automate some of the mechanics, the judgment, experience, and creative reasoning that engineers bring to problem-solving will continue to set them apart.
Dohmke also pointed out that younger programmers—those still in high school, college, or early in their careers—are often more adept at integrating AI into their work.
“They get it because they are taking this with an open mind,” he said. “They don’t have the, ‘This is how we’ve always done it.’”
This readiness to adopt and iterate with new technologies may position junior developers to succeed in ways previous generations couldn’t have imagined. The key, according to Dohmke, is not to fear AI but to embrace it as a tool that can extend a developer’s reach and reduce repetitive labor.
While some companies have begun reducing hiring for junior roles in favor of automation, GitHub’s message appears more balanced. The company sees AI as a force for amplifying talent, not replacing it. That means new developers still have a place—if they’re willing to learn how to work with machines, not just code for them.
For Dohmke, it all boils down to outcomes. He believes that what matters is getting the job done, not how it gets done.