Reading Code, the new SuperSkill

• Did you also hire developers the wrong way?

• Instead of letting them read code, you did let them write code? Or you still do?

• Reading code was always neglected in interviews, but developers most often need to read and understand code.

• When planning a feature they need to read code. When finding a bug, they need to read code. When doing a code review, they - need to read code. When new to a module, they need to read code.

• Developers always needed to read code more than write code.

• But interviewers still focus on letting developers write code, solve coding puzzles or invert binary trees on a whiteboard.

• Instead of testing if a potential hire can read and understand code, they focus on candidates to exclusively write code.

• With the advent of AI, this becomes even more of a problem.

• The software developer role is changing and on one hand moving more to a product oriented role.

• With AI engineers can take on more product responsibilities, their skills supplemented by AI.

• On the other hand developers become reviewers and managers of AI.

• Developers now need to read and understand much more code, code that an AI has created. AIs get stuck in a loop and you need to understand the code to help them out. AIs go off the track and you need to understand the code to create guardrails for the AI.

• Have you adapted your role descriptions?

• Have you already adapted your recruiting practices?

• Neglecting code reading skills is no longer an option.