Software engineers are in the midst of an industry-wide transformation, and along the way, they’ve found a second job: upskilling.
Some developers are intentionally pivoting to AI-focused roles at the cutting edge of technology. But even those who remain in traditional engineering roles say keeping up with the pace of change can be daunting.
“You have to have a job to keep up with everything that’s coming out,” said Jason Grado, co-founder and CEO of tech startup Massive.
He told Business Insider that he spends about 20% of his time learning new things, reading, and taking tests.
In conversations with Business Insider, four other developers and three technology leaders said they spend anywhere from an hour a day up to more than 20 hours a week learning new tools and adapting to rapidly changing demands.
Although the amount of time engineers spent developing their skills varied, they all felt the same pressure. “Get on board or fall behind.”
new requirements
Pratiksha Patnaik, a 30-year-old infrastructure engineer at Google, said that in addition to constantly learning on the job, AI has also changed the scope of her work, moving from networking security and infrastructure to helping customers deploy generative AI products and solutions. She said she spends several hours a week learning new AI concepts, otherwise she would “be left behind.”
“That’s something I need to do as part of my role,” Patnaik told Business Insider.
Mahir Sharma, a 24-year-old software engineer who has spent more than a decade honing his coding skills, said he was initially worried about losing his job to AI after the model improved so rapidly a few months ago.
However, he said he now feels optimistic about his future as a developer as he spends time learning about new concepts and learning about AI.
“Backend engineering is moving towards AI engineering,” Sharma told Business Insider that he spends about 20 hours a week upskilling.
In addition to experimenting with tools, Sharma said he is taking online courses on topics such as prompt engineering, building multi-orchestrated AI agents, and working with model context protocol servers.
Mark Krieger, a principal software engineer at an insurance company, told Business Insider that he spends 30 minutes to an hour every day after work to stay up to date on new tools.
He said he uses CodeSignal, an AI-powered platform that provides one free token every 24 hours. He said the token will allow him to practice the programming language Go. He also took an AI course and spent time improving his prompting skills.
Beyond the practical experiments and courses, part of the challenge is thinking about what to do next. Feneel Doshi, 27, a software engineer at a Jersey City startup, said she spends four to five hours a week experimenting with tools. Every weekday morning, he reads newsletters like TLDR and Flipboard, as well as developer blogs from OpenAI and Anthropic to stay up to date on what’s happening in the industry.
It’s not just individual contributors who are in this fray. Technology leaders expected to be at the forefront of AI adoption also said they are putting in extra time each day to keep up with the changes.
Keith Ballinger, vice president and general manager at Google, told Business Insider that he sends weekly emails tracking what he’s working on to stay accountable. He said he spends more than 20 hours a week experimenting with the tools.
The fun of experimenting
Engineers say learning new skills doesn’t have to be difficult.
“When you actually see something in production and see the results, you become addicted at that point,” Sharma told Business Insider.
Sharma added that he doesn’t find building projects for financial gain very rewarding, and that he also enjoys being able to experiment with AI in his own time.
Ballinger similarly said he loves the new era of AI engineering and feels there’s never been a better time to be a developer. He said there is no need to spend more than 20 hours a week experimenting with AI. He does it because it’s so much fun.
There’s always the possibility of creating the next big tool or feature.
Emrick Donaday, 32, a software engineer at Google who transitioned into an AI role, said part of the excitement when attending hackathons is the possibility that what he’s building will become a real feature.
Sharma pointed out that tools like OpenClaw were built in a month and spread rapidly. That’s something he’s feeling “optimistic” about as he builds, he said.