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From coders to conductors: The changing role of web developers in the age of AI
The dogma
Web developers were always regarded as a special breed of humans in the context of a web project team. You can, for instance, speak to a UX designer and strike a vibrant, familiar note in the common language. Similarly, a project manager is like a friend who holds your hand through the intricacies of delivering an online project. But developers are different. They speak a secret language full of abbreviated sorcery, concocting cloud-based solutions to earthly problems through CI/CD plumbing, whatever that is. You can get a glimpse of them as they work away at the back of the cave, shying away from light, and growling at approaching visitors, dreading the arrival of yet another vaguely formulated creative request. Occasionally, the project team wheels one of them out for a showing of technical prowess or if things break. But there is a wind of change sweeping in from the far-away lands of neural networks, begging the question: do we need these mysterious creatures?
The doubt
In the recently departed time period, a project wouldn’t be possible without a manually driven realisation phase when all the colourful user interface designs, the meticulously crafted user journeys, and the joyful UX workshop Miro boards were handed over via the slit in the cave opening to “be realised”. But is the need still justified? Do we still need expensive technical resources when vibe coding is stealing the show? We hear the rumours of non-technical entrepreneurs creating apps without a team of developers and ending up with a functional outcome. Do we now live in a new world full of possibilities where anybody can build a website, a web application, or even a full-size SaaS platform? Or is it more complicated?
The challenge
Many clients are playing with the enticing idea of taking on a project delivery themselves. An AI agent is, after all, a PhD-level assistant capable of understanding the complex needs of my business and has the technical know-how to deliver it, so what is the catch? In my opinion, based on a number of years of delivering web-based projects as part of a multifaceted team in one of Europe’s leading web agencies, AI agents really brought a big change in how projects are delivered. In the hands of an experienced and technically minded orchestrator, AI agents do their work within a well-defined and properly constrained path. Armed with extraordinary processing power and an almost Borg-like command of accumulated human knowledge, a developer has an army of capable and scalable assistants at their fingertips. Instead of mere coders in their own narrow field, they become something else. Drawing on their experience and deep technical knowledge, they stand at the centre of a swirling ensemble of artificial workers, directing a symphony of parallel tasks at a pace previously unimaginable. Through precise technical prompts, they channel and conduct the power of AI towards their fully formed, yet evolving idea of the final product.
The conductors
As AI grows increasingly capable of writing code and implementing complex functionality, the role of a web developer is undergoing a remarkable transformation. But make no mistake, AI isn’t here to replace us anytime soon. It empowers us to achieve much more with our knowledge and experience. Developers are in the process of leaving behind the notion of micromanaging every line of code and researching the best practices to deliver every single aspect of a project. Instead, they grow wings and take off into the air to see farther, reach wider, control more activity, and orchestrate rather than play a single instrument.
The responsibility
AI empowers all of us to achieve more. To deliver projects we could never have delivered on our own. But there is a difference between the end result of a project delivered using AI by a conductor with little prior experience and an experienced one. The conductor sets the tempo, the emotion, and the final resolution of an orchestra piece. It leaves you with the lingering sense of having witnessed something much more than the combined sum of all the orchestra maestros. The conductor ties the room together.
So that’s what developers have to become. Grow into the shoes of orchestrators. Know where to step in to adjust an evolving dynamic process. Keep their agents pushing in one direction set by the orchestrator. Be able to recognise where things go off track and provide targeted input to bring them back.
And above all, be responsible for the final result.
The conclusion
Can anybody deliver a web project without prior experience and technical insight? Sure. And it might even work. But before you choose to go down that route, ask yourself the following questions:
- Do you trust yourself to critically review a complex project plan and technical architecture before AI-powered development starts?
- Do you understand the implications of technical decisions and pivots in the middle of project development?
- Can you carry out your own quality assurance, set up your deployment pipelines, and ensure live users of your system don’t face unexpected consequences of deployed changes?
- Are you able to guide AI agents with technical precision and insight so their operation is efficient?
The developers of the future do all of that and more. They bring years of experience, technical judgement, and an instinct for knowing when things are about to go wrong.
The instruments may have changed. The orchestra may now be robotic. But someone still needs to know what good music sounds like.
By Tomas Herink
