Staying up to date in a rapidly evolving world is not easy. Ask Will Grannis, Google Cloud's Chief Technology Officer.
Keeping up with the times during the AI revolution does not mean you abandon what you have learned in the past. Grannis said that many of the “core pillars” that previous generations learned are still relevant, even if modalities change.
Google Cloud CTO spoke to Business Insider in an interview. “Because that context allows us to think about how we design something for efficiency and value.”
Grannis said traditional computer science degree or coding programs remain useful as the relevant fundamentals remain, and job seekers need to “lead towards education.”
The CTO commented because once-stable career paths like software engineering face calculations in the wake of the AI revolution. AI tools like Copilot and Codex automate the core of jobs, spurring debate over whether skills like coding are still essential.
But getting the foundation doesn't mean doing all the old school.
Grannis said job seekers in high-tech spaces should still learn skills like coding, but they also said they should use modern tools to keep up with where the world is changing. The high-tech executive said job seekers should spend a little time learning the new tools and systems available “beyond the formal curriculum.”
“That's what I've done in my entire career,” Grannis, who studied at West Point and began his career as an Army captain, told BI. He said formal education would not be enough to stay up to date with industry changes.
As an example, Granis said he was “forced” his global team to engage in “coding the atmosphere” at the upcoming hackathon.
“Using AI, you just generate code, modify it, manipulate it and refine it,” Grannis said.
The CTO said that part of the tool should not work, such as job seekers creating prompts. Grannis says that learning is important for quick engineering, but some may argue that what you can copy and paste will be boilerplate code. However, the AI revolution is headed towards agent AI and is important to understand the data, tools and systems that multi-agent systems need to work with, Grannis said.
“You're working like you used to, so you had to think about it in the application layer.
Now we are in the age of “context engineering,” he said. “So, not just the prompts, but what data, which tools, AI, and the systems needed to function properly?”
This means job seekers need to speed up context engineering and understand the full scope of the system they carry.
Google Cloud CTO advice reflects the advice of other high-tech executives.
Google's research director previously said that basics are more important than ever, as they have the opportunity to build on these basic skills. Cisco EVP and the best customer experience officer told BI that learning is still important as traditional coding provides job seekers with the “basic elements to train” to solve problems.
