Senior software developers are bracing for a major shift in how they work as artificial intelligence becomes central to their workflows. By Bears Dev The latest Giant barometer Report publication tomorrow. VentureBeat was given an exclusive preliminary look and the results below come directly from that report.
The quarterly global survey, which surveyed 501 developers and 19 project managers across 92 software initiatives, found that nearly two-thirds (65%) of senior developers expect their roles to be reshaped by AI in 2026.
The data highlights an ongoing shift in software development: less routine coding work, greater emphasis on design and strategy, and a growing need for AI fluency.
From coders to strategy
Among expected changes, 74% say they expect to move from coding to designing solutions.
Another 61% plan to integrate AI-encoded code into their workflows, and half spend more time on predictive system strategy and architecture.
“It’s not about lines of code anymore,” ByersDev’s chief technology officer Justus Erolin said in a recent interview with The New York Times. VentureBeat Done on video call. “It’s about the quality and type of code, and the kind of work developers are doing.”
Erolin said the company is seeing developers evolve from individual contributors to systems thinkers.
“AI code is great for scaffolding and generating unit tests, which saves developers about eight hours a week,” he explained. “That time can now be used for solution architecture and strategy work.
Survey data reflect this change. Developers are moving to higher-value tasks while automation takes over much of the coding that once occupied junior engineers.
Aerolin notes that Barris Dev’s internal data mirrors these findings. “We’re seeing a shift where senior engineers with AI tools are replacing, and even replacing, the traditional senior-plus-junior team setup,” he said.
Realism about the limits of AI
Despite the widespread enthusiasm, developers remain cautious about the reliability of AI.
More than half (56%) describe AI-filled code as “somewhat reliable,” saying it still needs validation for accuracy and security. only 9% Trust it to use without human supervision.
Arolyn agreed with that sentiment. “AI does not replace human supervision,” he said. “Even as tools improve, developers still need to understand how individual components fit into the larger system.”
He added that the biggest obstacle in today’s big language models is “their context window”. This is the limited ability to maintain and reason throughout the system. “Engineers need to think about the architecture as a whole, not just individual lines of code,” he said.
The CTO described 2025 as a turning point in how engineers use AI tools like GitHub Coplot, Cursor, Cloud, and OpenAI to model. “We are aware of what tools and models our engineers use,” he said. “But the bigger story is how these tools impact learning, productivity and monitoring.”
Optimism in this rage is associated with the past of Byers Dev Giant barometer The results, which show that 92% of developers are already using AI-assisted coding by Q3 2025, saving an average of 7.3 hours per week.
A year of upskilling
In 2025, AI integration already brings tangible professional benefits. 74% of developers said the technology strengthened their technical skills, 50% reported a better work-life balance, and 37% said AI tools expanded their career opportunities.
The company sees AI emerging as “a top use case for upskilling,” Erolin said. Developers use it to “learn new technologies faster and fill knowledge gaps,” he said. “When developers understand how AI works and its limitations, they can use it to enhance — not replace — their critical thinking. They point better and learn more effectively.”
Still, he warned of long-term risk at the industry’s current pace. “If junior engineers are being replaced or not hired, we will face a shortage of qualified senior engineers in ten years as the current ones retire,” said Erolin.
Giant barometer The results echo this concern. Developers expect leaner teams, but many also worry that fewer entry-level opportunities could lead to long-term talent pipeline problems.
Lean teams, new priorities
Developers expect 2026 to bring smaller, more specialized teams. 58% say automation will reduce entry-level jobs, while 63% expect new career paths to emerge as AI reshapes team structures. 59% expect AI to create entirely new special characters.
According to BerrisDev data, developers currently split their time between writing code (48%), debugging (42%), and documentation (35%). Only 19% report focusing primarily on creative problem solving and innovation—expecting AI to take away low-level coding tasks.
The report also highlights where developers see the fastest growing areas for 2026: AI/ML (67%), data analytics (46%), and cybersecurity (45%). In parallel, 63% of project managers said developers will need more training in AI, cloud and security.
Erolin describes the next generation of developers as “T-shaped engineers”—people with broad system knowledge and deep expertise in one or more disciplines. “The most important developer going forward will be the T-shaped engineer,” he said. “Broad in understanding, deep in skill.”
AI as an industry standard
Q4 Giant barometer Frame AI not as an experiment, but as a foundation for how teams will work in 2026. Developers are moving beyond using AI as a coding shortcut and instead incorporating it into architecture, validation and design decisions.
Aerolin emphasized that Berris Dev is already adapting its internal teams to this new reality. “Our engineers are with us full-time, and we staff them where they’re needed,” he said. “Some clients require year-to-year support. Others outsource their entire dev team to us.”
Berris Dev “provides nearly 5,000 software engineers from Latin America, offering clients time-zone-aligned, culturally aligned and highly fluent English-speaking talent,” he said.
As developers integrate AI more deeply into their daily work, Erolin believes that the competitive advantage lies with those who understand both the technology’s capabilities and its constraints. “When developers learn to collaborate with AI instead of competing against it, that’s when the real productivity and creativity gains come,” he said.
Background: Who is Bearsdew?
Founded in Buenos Aires in 2009 by Nacho de Marco and Paul Azorin, Beresdev started with a mission to connect what it describes as the “top 1%” of Latin American developers with global companies looking for high-quality software solutions. The company has grown from these early roots to become a major close-knit software development and staffing provider, offering everything from individual developer placement to full end-to-end project outsourcing.
Today, ByersDev claims to have delivered over 1,200 projects across 130+ industries, serving hundreds of clients ranging from startups like Google, Adobe, and Rolls-Royce to Fortune 500 firms. It operates in more than 40 countries with a remote-first model and a workforce of more than 4,000 professionals, synchronizing its teams across the North American time zone.
The company emphasizes three primary benefits: access to elite technical capabilities in 100+ technologies, rapid scalability for project needs, and near-proximity for real-time collaboration. It reports that the client relationship is more than three years and the satisfaction rate is around 91%.
Barris Dev’s unique position—by pressing Latin American talent with global enterprise clients—provides an unusually data-rich perspective on how AI is transforming software development at scale.
Takeaway
Giant barometerQ4 2025 results show that 2026 will mark a turning point for software engineering. Developers are becoming system architects instead of pure coders, AI literacy is becoming a baseline requirement, and traditional entry-level roles may give way to new, specialized positions.
As AI becomes embedded in every stage of development – ​​from design to testing – developers who can combine technical fluency with strategic thinking are poised to lead the next era of software creation.