Engineers inherit the earth in every technology revolution, and the AI era is no exception. Ariel Assaraf, CEO and co-founder of Coralogix, joins Alan Shimel to argue the pendulum is swinging back after a year of layoffs. Furthermore, the bar to call yourself an engineer has never been higher.

About Ariel Assaraf

Ariel started his career in Israel's elite Unit 8200 before joining Verint Systems. In 2015, he co-founded Coralogix to modernize monitoring and observability. Consequently, the platform now serves roughly 5,000 accounts. Moreover, Coralogix has grown fifty times over five years, and the team stands at 600 people across four continents.

Why engineers inherit the earth in the AI era

Ariel and Alan trace the parallel to previous revolutions. During the industrial revolution, machines multiplied output. However, more people were still needed to operate the new floor. Similarly, cloud did not delete the system engineer. Instead, it turned that role into the platform engineer and the DevOps engineer.

Therefore, the same pattern is unfolding with AI. Coding gets automated. Meanwhile, the builders and problem solvers who define engineering become more valuable, not less. As Alan puts it in his upcoming book, engineers inherit the earth whether they build software today, quantum systems tomorrow or fusion reactors after that.

Proof from inside Coralogix

Ariel shares Coralogix's own numbers. Feature production has climbed more than tenfold in six months. In addition, the bug backlog has flipped from opening more than closing to closing more than opening. As a result, cutting the engineering department would be the worst possible move for any leader watching those metrics.

OpenAI's hiring of 400 ex-Apple engineers, Ariel argues, reinforces the point. That is why engineers inherit the earth. Their skill is the most valuable asset a company owns. Consequently, the companies that laid engineers off may find they cannot rehire the same talent.

The rebirth of the modern engineer

The conversation closes on rebirth. Every function has to relearn its craft on the new AI foundation. Finance, go-to-market and engineering itself must lift their game. In short, engineers inherit the earth, and everyone else has to become one. Catch more conversations like this on TechStrong TV interviews and dig into more AI coverage.