Today, there was a consensus that “manual” coding is rapidly decreasing, with almost all attendees reporting that they write almost no code themselves, instead acting as “conductors” or “architects”. More importantly, some have literally stopped reviewing code, relying on good practices, multiple layers of agents with different models cross-checking each other, and frequent sanity checks rather than thorough manual code reviews. Others, however, warn that reviewing code is sometimes necessary for business logic, performance, and more importantly security.
This huge step is partly due to the performance of Claude Opus 4.6. But even if Anthropic’s model has won this battle, it is almost always combined with another coding agent: usually Codex (often favored for very long tasks), Amp Code (considered by Pierre to be the best, although the most expensive as well), or GLM.
For Benoît, while the “manual labor” of writing code (the developer) might be automated or “die,” the ability to solve complex problems and design systems (the engineer) will remain vital. Seniority is no longer about syntax but about “mastering the harness,” which means knowing how to set up the environment, the tests, and the architecture so the AI can self-correct. Also, this is a huge challenge for mentoring juniors, such as Thomas who plans to hire 230 fresh new engineers at Theodo. There is a fear they may become “tourists,” copy-pasting solutions without understanding the underlying systems and failing to develop the “mental muscles” needed for deep problem-solving.
Almost everyone agreed that this raised another issue when working with agents: it feels like people share less on a daily basis with their peers. Even juniors can give a sense of full autonomy with massive PRs that should have required earlier consultation. Also, good practices for collaboration between team members are still unclear. It is still debated what should be part of the codebase versus what stays a personal preference, and the variety of tools can be an obstacle to full harmony.