AI Ushers In 'Best Developer Opportunity in 30 Years,' Says Tech Veteran

A veteran software developer, speaking on January 2nd, 2026, has declared the current era of AI-driven development as the most significant opportunity for software professionals in three decades. Drawing on extensive experience since 1995, the expert highlights a recurring cycle in software evolution: new technologies introduce higher layers of abstraction, simplifying software construction, enabling previously impossible applications, and consequently generating vast new job markets. This cycle, currently propelled by AI, low-code, and no-code platforms, is fundamentally disrupting traditional software paradigms, signaling a shift where established methodologies will fade to make way for innovative approaches.

While this transition may challenge developers resistant to change, particularly those focused on legacy ‘tinkering’ with older frameworks, it simultaneously opens unprecedented opportunities for those embracing AI-based development. The speaker reports being ‘inundated’ with requests for AI implementations, citing examples such as advanced voice-recognition chatbots for businesses, AI solutions for social media campaigns, and intelligent document processing. A significant area of opportunity lies in creating and controlling custom GPTs, which requires human judgment to tame powerful, yet often unpredictable, AI models. This transformation mirrors the web’s impact in the mid-90s, underscoring that success hinges not just on adopting new tools, but also on retaining a strong grasp of fundamental programming concepts, infrastructure understanding, and crucial human judgment to effectively leverage powerful AI models.