Beyond Coding: Why AI Makes Systems Thinking More Important For Engineers

Engineering education needs to move beyond writing code and equip students to understand how entire software systems work, according to speakers at Inc42’s inaugural ‘The CTO Summit 2026’.

Speaking during the panel ‘The Great Engineering Reset: Teams, Talent & Leadership After AI’, the participants called for greater emphasis on logical thinking, philosophy, and systems design to prepare engineers for work increasingly shaped by AI.

Moderated by Accel VP Anagh Prasad, the panel featured Naukri.com CTO Arvind Heda, Acko cofounder and CPTO Vishwanath Ramarao, and IDfy CEO Ashok Hariharan. The discussion examined how AI is changing engineering roles and team structures, with automation taking over more routine coding and quality assurance work.

Hariharan said this shift raises a longer-term question: how will engineers develop the expertise to design and manage complex systems if they spend less time building them?

Drawing on his “old-school engineering background”, he recalled how earlier generations of engineers had to grapple with problems such as memory management. Over time, tools and software layers made those underlying processes less visible to developers.

“There’s a lot of crap code that gets written,” he said, warning that AI-assisted development could amplify existing quality problems if engineers assume the tools can do everything for them.

The concern extends beyond the code being produced today to the capabilities engineers will develop over the coming years. Hariharan joked that engineers can advance into leadership roles before fully understanding the responsibilities of a lead or manager, eventually becoming VPs.

“I think we are in danger of the same kind of thing now,” he said.

Hariharan said engineering teams have fewer mid-level engineers, leaving a skills gap between senior architects and junior developers. This raises a question about how junior engineers will learn to design systems.

“How do you teach systems design when they don’t necessarily code on a daily basis?” he asked.

The growing demands of testing also surfaced in a separate discussion at the CTO Summit on how AI is changing coding and review. Cashfree Payments CTO Ramkumar Venkatesan said the company’s spending on virtual environments for testing now exceeds its spending on AI tools.

For Hariharan, the shift towards AI-generated code increases the need for architects who understand deployment, security, and scaling. Automating routine implementation work does not remove the responsibility to ensure that the resulting systems are reliable and secure.

“I think there’s a huge number of security flaws that are going to be exposed. I am pretty sure that’s a fear every CTO has,” he said.

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