---
title: "Hiring in the AI Era"
description: "AI coding agents got very good in the last six months. So what kind of developer should I hire now, how do I interview them, and do I even need more developers? My answer: generalists win, at least for now."
url: https://manytomany.co/blog/hiring-in-the-ai-era/
published: 2026-07-31
---

# Hiring in the AI Era

31 July 2026

![Cover image for Hiring in the AI Era](https://manytomany.co/content/blog/hiring-in-the-ai-era/cover.jpg)

One of my customers is about to start another project, and he asked me for more resources. I run a small team, and the last time I hired anyone was six months ago. A lot has changed since then — specifically, AI coding agents became very good. So what kind of developer should I hire? How do I interview them? In fact, do I even need more developers?

The answer to the last question, for now, is still yes. Agents still require babysitting, despite what [big AI calls it](https://claude.com/code-with-claude/session/ldn-stop-babysitting-your-agents). They still make mistakes. And software engineering is not _only_ about coding. Coding agents have come a long way, but I still cannot trust them to do the right thing on their own.

At this point, I believe generalists win. Say I need to develop an iOS application — why would I want to hire an iOS specialist? Knowing the iOS quirks certainly helps, but how hard is that to learn when you don’t really need to learn the iOS plumbing anymore? You don’t really need to learn Swift either. Again, it helps, but it is not a requirement. [Coding is cheap](https://karimjedda.com/engineering-management-after-cost-of-code-collapse/) now.

So which skills are worth having? Knowing programming _in general_. Understanding how systems work _in general_. Knowledge of user interfaces (if you build those), or databases (if you work with those), or other technologies — _in general_. Business-oriented thinking, user-oriented thinking, the ability to organize things. Generalists win. At least for now.

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## Hi. I'm Vitalii.

I’m a software developer, technical manager and solo entrepreneur. I have been building software products all my life. I am offering **CTO as a Service** at many-to-many.

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