Don’t Learn More Programming Languages: Why Augmented Engineers Only Need Two in 2024

Would you rather hire the engineer that has 12 programing languages listed on their resume or 1?

Learning additional programming languages already offers diminishing returns for software engineers. With AI writing code, there is an opportunity cost on your time for learning another programming language.

Once you know 1 or 2 languages, you are wasting your time learning more (assuming you want skills that are valuable to your employer).

There are more useful skills to invest your time in than additional programming languages.

If your goal is to be valuable to employers in the future, invest your time in skills that AI can’t replace instead.

You need to know one programming language well, so you can understand how to ask questions, prompt AI, and fix issues with code that’s generated.

I’m a Staff Engineer. Last year I led a 5 person team creating an internal data service written in Scala. When the project began, I had never written a line of Scala.

And it didn’t matter.

Because I know a few programming languages well, I could ask AI specific questions about concepts of Scala or syntax and understand the code I was reading. If I had spent the first few weeks or month of this project just learning Scala, I would have delayed this project.

Let the AI do it what it does well.

Software engineers should learn no more than 2 languages from different paradigms.

Pick one OOP and one Functional language to learn (programming paradigms).

Different programming paradigms can improve your thinking by offering a new perspective to solving a problem. If you don’t know how to program yet, start with Python. It can let you write both OOP and functionally.

AI is replacing how much you need to code.

Learn one or two languages well. Don’t go beyond that if your goal is to maximize the value you bring to the job market for the amount of time you invest. If you have other goals, by all means, learn what you wish.

Let AI do the low-creative work. You lead the AI.

Become an Augmented Engineer.