Microsoft’s recent layoff of 6,000 employees — the second-largest workforce reduction in its history — has ignited concerns across the tech industry, particularly for software engineers. The cuts, which disproportionately affected coding professionals, were centered heavily in Washington state, where over 40% of the eliminated roles were held by software engineers, according to a Bloomberg analysis. Project management positions made up another 30%.
The layoffs coincide with Microsoft’s aggressive push into artificial intelligence, a sector the company has earmarked nearly $80 billion for in infrastructure spending this fiscal year. With AI now reportedly generating up to 30% of code in some projects, industry observers have raised concerns about the long-term demand for traditional programming roles.
However, Microsoft’s Chief Product Officer for Experiences and Devices, Aparna Chennapragada, says the perception that coding is becoming obsolete is fundamentally flawed. In a recent podcast appearance, she pushed back against growing skepticism about pursuing computer science as a career path.
“Coding Is Not Dead”: CPO Pushes Back Against AI Replaces Programmers Narrative
“I fundamentally disagree,” Chennapragada said in response to the idea that students shouldn’t bother learning to code. “We don’t program in assembly anymore. Most of us don’t even program in C. You go higher and higher in abstraction.” According to her, AI is merely the latest in a long line of tools that have simplified the development process—not replaced it.
She likened the current transition to previous shifts in computing history, noting that while coding responsibilities may change, the underlying need for computer science knowledge will remain. In her view, AI will augment developers, not replace them. The future, she suggested, may see engineers shift into roles as “software operators,” managing and editing AI-generated code rather than building from scratch.
“There’ll be an order of magnitude more software operators,” she predicted. “Instead of ‘Cs’ (coders), maybe we’ll have ‘SOs,’ but that doesn’t mean you don’t understand computer science.”
Redefining Roles: Project Managers and Engineers in the AI Era
Not just developers, but project managers also took a significant hit in Microsoft’s layoffs. Chennapragada acknowledged that AI’s rise is reshaping their function as well. As generative AI tools proliferate, she expects their role to evolve toward “taste-making and editing,” helping sift through an abundance of machine-generated ideas and prototypes to identify viable solutions.
“In a world where the supply of ideas and prototypes becomes an order of magnitude higher, you have to think about: what is the editing function here?” she said.
This evolving dynamic is consistent with CEO Satya Nadella’s broader vision for Microsoft as an AI-first company. The company’s pivot comes amid a competitive race to lead in AI infrastructure, large language models, and developer tools.
While layoffs have caused uncertainty for thousands, the company insists that these changes are part of a larger transformation — one where humans continue to play a vital role, albeit in ways that may look very different from the coding jobs of the past decade.