How is AI Changing Tech Jobs?

AI is changing how tech teams are built, the work they do, and the skills employers value. For this August’s DataScienceSG Meetup at Lorong AI, I joined a panel with leaders from engineering, product, data, and hiring to discuss how roles are evolving and what it takes to stay relevant.

Some of the questions we explored together:

• What routine task has AI automated, and what complex problems do you solve now?
• How has AI changed cross-functional collaboration as role boundaries blur?
• What is your personal strategy for continuous upskilling?

Two audience questions that I still recalled. Here are my answers.

1. How will team structure change because of AI?

Teams will become much flatter because one person can now have a much bigger impact. What separates teams that grow from teams that struggle is how they work together: reviewing each other’s work, checking quality, and keeping ownership clear.

Managers will have a hard time. Working with AI feels productive, but I sometimes find it more tiring than the way I worked before. That is a real problem for the managerial role.

2. What do I look for when hiring?

For juniors, it is still curiosity. What have they built? What technologies have they tried? How deeply do they understand what they built?

Building something with AI today is not the same as having a portfolio a few years ago. Shipping multiple apps with little understanding of how they work does not earn many bonus points anymore. Fundamentals still matter, even as the technology keeps changing.

For seniors, I look for someone with the potential to replace me one day. Someone who can grow into the next level, with the technical skills and team fit to match.