My son is studying software engineering. Here’s why I’m confident he’s made the right choice.
One of my sons is about to finish his second year of a software engineering degree, and he's starting to wonder whether he's made the right choice.
I can understand why. In the recently released Talent Solutions Student Pulse survey, just 14% of New Zealand tertiary students said they felt very confident about securing a job after study, the lowest result in the survey's 11-year history.
And with AI changing the way people can learn and complete assessments, there are plenty of questions about whether it is worth going to university. Hunter Yates, a second year software engineering student at AUT, authored an interesting article in Stuff recently and concluded it is only worthwhile because it opens doors.
I'm confident my son has made the right decision to study software engineering at university, although he should be prepared to enter an industry that's very different from the one he imagined when he enrolled.
Generative AI is fundamentally changing what it means to be a software engineer. People with little coding experience can now build working applications, and designers are developing software themselves. I suspect this is just the start.
For a business like Octave, which has spent years designing and building digital products, these changes bring enormous opportunities. They also challenge some of the fundamentals of how our industry operates.
And that's part of why I'm optimistic about my son's decision. Cheaper software development will bring an explosion of new applications and businesses, and someone will still need to engineer them properly.
BoxRank: Product development in 2026
One of the most interesting examples of this shift has come through Octave's work with BoxRank, a technology business building a global digital platform for amateur boxing.
BoxRank founder Dave Graham knows amateur boxing inside out. What he didn't have was a background in software development.
Not long ago, someone in Dave's position would probably have needed to engage a software company and spend a reasonable amount of money before having anything to put in front of potential customers.
Instead, Dave used Replit and AI-assisted development tools to build a working prototype himself. He used it to communicate his vision, validate the opportunity and secure funding and support.
That's where Octave came in.
Our team worked with Dave to get BoxRank investor-ready and travelled to the USA and Samoa to support him with his first customers. We then helped build the technology foundation BoxRank needed to scale, bringing expertise in software architecture, engineering, product development and design.
What I find particularly interesting is how AI changed the starting point. Dave arrived with something tangible that helped our team quickly understand his vision, including some of the nuances of amateur boxing that might otherwise have taken longer to explain.
But there is an important distinction between a prototype that looks like a finished product and software that's ready for real-world use. While Dave's prototype was an excellent communication tool, it wasn't a blueprint we could simply build from. We still needed to work through detailed UX design, wireframing and requirements to ensure the full customer experience had been considered.
There was also substantial engineering work involved. Building a platform that can securely manage sensitive information, integrate with other systems, support multiple organisations and operate internationally requires careful decisions about architecture, scalability and data management.
Where AI made a real difference for Octave was in execution speed. Once the foundations were in place, our team used AI tools to move from detailed designs to working functionality much faster. That gave us more time to test, refine and adapt the platform based on feedback from BoxRank's customers.
There are undoubtedly thousands of entrepreneurs like Dave experimenting with AI-assisted development. Not all of them will need a software company. But those who succeed may eventually face the same challenges as BoxRank.
For me, this is a good illustration of how software development is changing. AI is making it easier than ever to turn an idea into something tangible. But turning that idea into a secure, reliable and scalable product still requires experienced people who understand how to design and engineer complex systems.
The way we work at Octave is changing fast
Traditionally, we've had reasonably well-defined roles across research, UX design, UI design and software engineering. Those boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred.
Our designers now work across a much broader part of the process, from understanding customer problems to building working prototypes and contributing directly to development.
Software engineers are changing too. Rather than writing every line of code themselves, they're increasingly using AI agents to generate code, explore solutions and test functionality. Their role is shifting towards designing systems, making architectural decisions, managing complexity and ensuring everything works together. In some respects, they're becoming more like systems engineers than traditional software developers.
When AI can generate large amounts of code quickly, the challenge becomes knowing whether it's the right code, whether it's secure and whether the system will perform reliably.
AI is also challenging the traditional economics of software agencies. If a smaller team can deliver a project faster, the number of hours involved becomes a less meaningful measure of value. Increasingly, clients will judge us on the problems we solve and the commercial outcomes we help deliver.
What does this mean for Octave?
Companies whose primary value is producing designs or writing code will find it increasingly hard to differentiate themselves. For Octave, this reinforces a direction we've been moving in for some time.
We are not a business that simply builds digital products. We want to help businesses succeed through technology. BoxRank shows what that means in practice. Dave had the idea and validated the opportunity. We brought product design, architecture, security, engineering and commercial thinking to help turn a prototype into something that can scale.
Software engineering remains central to that, but it's part of a much broader capability. As AI makes it easier to create the first version of a product, the role for a business like Octave will increasingly lie in helping clients turn those products into something reliable, scalable and commercially successful.
Why I'm confident about my son's decision
I suspect that by 2029 most software engineers will write far less code and spend more of their time designing systems, checking what AI builds and solving complex problems.
Whether AI ultimately creates or eliminates software engineering jobs is difficult to predict. There may be fewer traditional development roles, but I expect new roles and specialities to emerge. What I am confident about is that software will become cheaper to produce, and that will create opportunities for people who understand both technology and business.
So I wouldn't tell my son to change degrees.
I'm telling him to learn the fundamentals: how systems work, how to solve difficult problems and how to make good technical decisions. But don't wait until graduation to start building. Use AI tools. Experiment. Build applications, test ideas, make mistakes and work out what these tools can and can't do.
Also, develop an understanding of the people and businesses you're building software for, because being technically capable is only part of what makes someone valuable.
I also think there has never been a better time for someone with technical knowledge and an entrepreneurial streak to start something of their own. The cost of turning an idea into a working product has fallen dramatically.
I don't know whether my son will spend his career as a software engineer, start his own business or end up doing something that doesn't have a job title yet. But I'm confident that learning how technology works, how to solve complex problems and how to build things will give him a strong foundation for whatever comes next.
AI is making it easier than ever to create software. The opportunity now lies in knowing what to create, how to engineer it properly and how to turn it into something valuable. That's an exciting future for someone entering the industry. And it's an exciting one for Octave.
Mike Brough is a Co-founder and Director of Octave, a New Zealand technology consultancy specialising in software development, data and AI. He is also CEO of Dot Loves Data, an ANZ-owned data and analytics business.
