The rise of AI has sparked intense debate about software engineering’s future, but Edinburgh Napier University’s inaugural PlusEquals5 conference in April 2025 offered a more nuanced picture.
Rather than wholesale job displacement, leading practitioners described AI as a “disruptive coding partner” that’s shifting the profession from code writing to workflow orchestration.
The conference introduced the concept of the “tree-shaped engineer” – professionals with deep technical roots and a broad canopy of collaborative capabilities including AI partnership skills, communication treated as a core technical competency, and cultural awareness of how systems impact diverse users.
Drawing on real-world examples from Scotland’s public sector transformation to cybersecurity work in North Africa, speakers demonstrated that technical excellence alone is insufficient. Successful engineers must understand context, build trust, and navigate complexity.
The conference report offers a compelling vision where human skills become more, not less, important as AI capabilities expand. You can read the full report here.
The next PlusEquals5 conference takes place on April 2nd, 2026, at Edinburgh Napier University. Early proposals welcome at plusequals5@napier.ac.uk.