The rules of software engineering just changed. What does that mean for everyone trying to break in — or stay relevant?
In this episode of CTO Confidential, I sit down with Will Sentence — founder of Codesmith, fellow at Oxford, instructor at Frontend Masters, and the person whose JavaScript: The Hard Parts course genuinely changed the trajectory of my career. We get into the real conversations happening in engineering right now: the job market, the value of tacit knowledge, what AI actually changes (and what it doesn't), and where the next generation of builders is going to find their footing.
This one goes deep.
In this episode:
- Why "learn to teach it" is still the most powerful way to truly understand anything
- The gap between engineers who can wield AI tools and those who get burned by them — and what separates the two
- Why embodied AI and robotics may be where the next 10 million engineers build their careers
- The US Treasury's $118M modernization contract and what government work looks like in the AI era
- The broken job market: why 100 applications and no callbacks isn't your fault — and what to do instead
- Forward deployed engineering as the rising job title of our moment
- What interviews will look like as companies figure out what they're even hiring for
- The workforce development problem nobody in power is actually solving yet
Follow Will:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/willsentance/
X: https://x.com/willsentance
Codesmith: https://www.codesmith.io/
Frontend Masters: https://frontendmasters.com/
Recommendations:
AI Engineering by Chip Nguyen: https://a.co/d/0gfV0OCf