Head of Claude Code: What happens after coding is solved | Boris Cherny

Lenny's PodcastLenny's PodcastBoris ChernyFeb 19, 20261h 28min

Boris Cherny, creator of Claude Code at Anthropic, delivers a stark assessment of how AI has fundamentally transformed software engineering in just two years. He argues that traditional coding roles are rapidly becoming obsolete, with some engineers already spending more on AI tokens than their salaries, and predicts that job titles will shift from "software engineer" to "builder" as the profession evolves into product management.

Key takeaways

  • Code reviews have become the new bottleneck in software development now that AI can handle most of the actual code generation.
  • Some engineers are already spending hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly on AI tokens, indicating a massive shift in how development work gets done.
  • Traditional software engineering job titles will disappear within 1-2 years, replaced by "builder" or product manager roles focused on directing AI rather than writing code.
  • The most valuable engineers will be generalists who can think across disciplines and focus on broader problem-solving rather than technical implementation.
  • AI coding tools have evolved so rapidly that they now handle 4% of all public GitHub commits, fundamentally changing the economics of software development.

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27:40· 32smarket insight

Some engineers now spend hundreds of thousands monthly on AI tokens

27:40 / 28:12

is higher than their salary? Is that a trend you think we're gonna find and see? You know, at Anthropic, we're starting to see some engineers that are spending

hundreds of thousands a month in tokens. So we're starting to see this a little bit. There's some companies that we're starting to see similar things. Yeah.

Going back to coding, do you miss writing code? Is it something you're kind of sad about that this is no longer a thing you will do as a software engineer? It's funny. For me,

when I learned engineering, for me, it was very practical.

So what I'm hearing here is in terms There's always this question, should I learn to code?

at 32:08

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