Will AI replace software engineers? Amazon says no

The debate over whether AI will displace software engineers has a new data point and it cuts against the pessimists. Amazon plans to bring on 11,000 software development interns in 2026, and AWS CEO Matt Garman says demand for developers inside the company is not just holding steady. It's growing.

"I can tell you we are hiring just as many software developers as we ever had inside of Amazon," Garman told attendees at Amazon's What's Next with AWS event on Tuesday. "And in fact, I see the demand for that really accelerating."

The spokesperson from Amazon told Business Insider that the number of 11,000 interns matches prior years and includes not only interns but also early-career engineers that have already graduated into full-time employees.

The statements come as some of the loudest voices in the artificial intelligence space make the exact opposite argument. As reported by Business Insider, back in February, Anthropic's Claude Code creator Boris Cherny, predicted that the job title "software engineer" will be phased out in the long run.

In addition, Andreessen Horowitz partner Martin Casado once called the area "disrupted as a discipline." On the other hand, Garman was more explicit about calling it nonsense since August.

Garman did not argue that software engineering is untouched by AI. He said the work is shifting. "Being an expert at being able to author a Java code snippet is going to be less valuable in the future than it was maybe a couple of years ago," he said.

Garman does not deny the impact of AI on the profession; he says that the impact is the shift in demand for particular skills rather than a shrinking workforce.

It is against the backdrop of 11,000 interns and new hires at Amazon that we see the more complicated reality. Amazon has conducted layoffs that have affected about 16,000 corporate employees this year, which the company said was not principally due to AI.

The description of the internship programme by Amazon as "a critical path to discover the next generation of leaders and builders" indicates the company's belief that software development engineers who recently graduated from college are an asset worth investing in.