This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Navya Jammalamadaka, a 27-year-old software engineer at Microsoft who lives in Redmond, Washington. The following has been edited for length and clarity. I'm still fairly early in my career, but I've seen software engineering roles change a lot. I used to go to work and code for five to six hours a day without the assistance of an AI tool. Now, my job is more like being the architect — guiding AI to write the code while I design the system.