Recently I got the opportunity to talk to three computer science students. They were tasked with the assignment to find and talk to experienced software engineers and ask them about their career and how useful they found their studies to be.

It was an interesting experience for me and it made me think a bit more about specific advice I would give to students.

1. Don’t worry about AI.

Of course, it’s all that everyone is talking about. AI, AI, AI. The term has seemingly lost and gained all its meaning.

Don’t worry too much about AI. But try to understand it.

I don’t see any evidence that the technology is going to replace you. And I don’t think that companies are going to stop hiring software engineers. But I do see evidence that the technology is here to stay. It might change its shape, AI companies will come and go, but I think the technology will remain. Software engineering is a rapidly changing field and pretty much always has been.

Spend some time fiddling with AI (and specifically agentic coding). See what it can and can’t do for you. Where are it’s strengths/weaknesses?

And for the love of god, don’t use AI to cheat…

2. Learn how to read code.

This is a big one. I strongly believe that knowing how to read code is as important, if not more important than writing code.

Wherever you’ll end up working, you will read a lot of code. Especially in the day and age of AI. Reading and understanding code is a skill that you can learn and practice like any other skill. I recommend looking at repos online. Try and understand what a piece of code is doing simply by reading it. I also believe that the more code you read, the better you’ll become at writing it.

Eventually you’ll review other peoples (or AIs) code. Understanding what is and isn’t important about a piece of code, what makes it error prone, what makes it maintainable, what makes it readable, where comments matter and where they don’t, all this will impact the quality of your code review.

I’d say that reading & reviewing other peoples/AI code is like 90% of the work that I do nowadays.

3. Turn theory into practice.

Do stuff! Be active!

If you can, try and look for a student job during your studies. Maybe apply to programs like Google Summer of Code. Or get involved with open source projects yourself. Go to conferences!

Whatever you gravitate towards, try getting active in that area and start hacking around. It’s the best way to start gaining those skill points.

Good luck!