Thanks to AI, everyone can code. But staff engineers at Netflix said they tell new graduates that doesn't mean their job prospects are hopeless.
“We're going to see some amazing things, but our appetite for more features, more apps, more ecosystem is only going to get higher and higher,” Anthony Goto said in a recent TikTok video. “At the end of the day, I think this is essentially going to be another level of programming language, a high-level programming language.”
Goto, who has 15 years of experience at Netflix and Uber alone, said AI-related concerns are among the top concerns he hears when talking to new graduates and the employees he mentors.
And to be fair, given the rapid advances in agentic AI tools like Anthropic's Claude that have led to “vibe coding,” there's a lot of differing opinions about the future value of a computer science degree and the overall value of coding knowledge.
One way to stay competitive is to make sure new engineers learn system design, Goto said.
“System design is exactly what I try to make sure new engineers are able to handle,” he said. “In the future, we may treat system design like a tool.”
Goto points to the video game industry as an example of what's to come. Since Doom's introduction in 1993, rapid advancements have created an industry that has generated more than $100 billion in revenue and regularly attracts Hollywood talent for its biggest releases.
“Imagine someone in 2000 or 2010. They go back in time and go to John Carmack and say, 'You know what? In the future, there's going to be something called a video game engine,'” Goto said.
Last year, Carmack, Doom's lead programmer and video game legend, said that advances in software have made some of the grunt work he did in the early days “no more important than maintaining the wheels on a tank.”
“Game engines have radically expanded the scope of people involved in game development, while downplaying the importance of much of the systems engineering I love,” Carmack wrote about X in April 2025.
Game engines are now so powerful that they are used to create immersive digital sets and environments, such as those featured in Disney's hit series The Mandalorian.
Although Goto acknowledges that his predictions are very likely inaccurate, he believes the need for engineers is clear based on the trajectory of past technological advances.
“We've seen it many times before, where you abstract things in a very powerful way,” he says. “And what it actually does is democratize the process.”
