INPUT ISN'T
VALUE
Current Hiring Signals in the AI Era
DevOpsDays Austin 2026
Keynote by New Iron
AUSTIN, TX
DevOpsDays Austin 2026
New Iron
What Are We Doing Here
Sharing our insights on AI’s impact on hiring
Perspectives on AI Usage from Leaders
How Engineers Position AI Value
Hiring Team’s Signals
⚡ Our observations are not conclusions!
DevOpsDays Austin 2026
New Iron
New Iron's (Limited) View
Seeing from “our” arena
› AI is not destroying the job market.
�› AI adoption can be dependent on industry (high regulations aren't friendly to new tech adoptions).
�› AI can be a very good assistant and researcher. Not yet a capable autonomous (zero human oversight) doer.
�› Leaders still hired for reliability, integration, uptime, domain depth, and execution discipline.
�› Conflicting views: the team must use AI vs no AI.
DevOpsDays Austin 2026
New Iron
Perspectives from Leaders
One VP's Mandate
“
Stop coding normally. Prompting has replaced coding. Engineers write requirements, AI writes code. Hiring freeze in effect.
Another Leader's View
“
AI can't code reliably. Avoid vibe coders. We want engineers who understand systems deeply.
DevOpsDays Austin 2026
New Iron
The Engineer’s Perspective
Objectives, Not Output
We don't sell lines of code — we achieve business objectives.
Problems, Not Hours
We don't sell hours logged — we sell problems solved.
Staying Ahead
There is always evolving tech. Engineers retain agency by staying ahead of the curve to better solve problems.
DevOpsDays Austin 2026
New Iron
The Frame Hasn’t Changed
I deliver the most value when I understand the business objectives, the tooling ecosystem and desired outcomes. Whether AI tools can write my code and tests or not, the value is in the business problem being understood and solved.
My value is…
Understanding the business objectives,�Orchestrating the solution, and�Verifying the outcome.
I solved {business problem}
VS
Instead of…
Writing code
Using this technology __
Completing a ticket
�I did {technical work}
(Good news: this is the strongest framing whether you use AI or not)
DevOpsDays Austin 2026
New Iron
When Hiring Highlights AI
It's because the job is AI centered. There are dev roles everywhere with little to no mention of AI.
Character A: Everlywell
"AI-first engineering culture where AI is a 10x force multiplier"
Expects: Cursor, Copilot, AI-enhanced CI/CD and code review
Character B:
Electronic Arts
"AI Enablement Architect"
Agentic architectures, Model Context Protocol, tool calling, production AI deployment
DevOpsDays Austin 2026
New Iron
Your Move
Shape the future of AI use by actively engaging:
We are seeing signals. We are hearing conflicting anecdotes. We are not drawing the conclusion.
You must determine how AI is going to add value to your organization. (don't rush to catastrophe)
Keep increasing your knowledge of AI. The worst thing you can do is be indifferent.
Talk to other attendees while you're here about: how your org solves problems using Agents/GenAI, securing AI, what tasks you're replacing, usage policies, how you add value, what the tradeoffs and hurdles are.
DevOpsDays Austin 2026
New Iron
While at DevOpsDays 2026
Our hope is you are energized to begin answering these questions:
Engineers
1. What is my current AI usage broken down by Generative and Agentic?
�2. How do I increase my value with AI knowledge (not wed to a specific tool)?
�3. How do I solve problems better with AI?
�4. What are the tradeoffs?
Organizations
1. How do our employees use AI to better solve our business problems?
�2. How do we interview to understand the value engineers bring with AI?
�3. How do we remain flexible and focused as AI evolves the value proposition?
4. What are the risks?
DevOpsDays Austin 2026
New Iron
Join Us in the Career Room
Discuss hiring processes, interviews, resumes, and how AI ties in
DevOpsDays Austin 2026
New Iron
APPENDIX
Questions to Consider
Individual Agency as AI Grows
› How do I use AI to increase productivity and/or quality of value delivery?
› How do I use AI to decrease time spent and/or cost of value delivery?�Workflow: Pick one area to explore AI use: Insert and test AI with a quality gate (spec drafting, scaffold generation, test creation). Decrease time/cost of TASK A. Increase productivity/quality of TASK B.
Hiring
› What is our engineer interview process when we know the value we expect AI?
› How do you develop an AI Dev Prompt for a User Story or Business Requirement? What gaps can occur from prompt to delivery?
› At what scale have you architected Agentic AI within the SDLC? At what organization have you been most impressed with their Agentic AI Architecture?
› What is our engineer interview process as we are discovering the value we want AI?
› What have you experienced with AI embedded in the SDLC? Where did you see AI add the most value?
DevOpsDays Austin 2026
New Iron
APPENDIX: Highlights
Compare New Iron vs The Experts
Deloitte / Gartner
https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/technology-management/tech-trends/2026/agentic-ai-strategy.html
Gartner predicts 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously through agentic AI by 2028, up from none in 2024, while 33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI by the same timeframe, compared with less than 1% today.
Anthropic – Agentic Coding Trends Report 2026
https://resources.anthropic.com/hubfs/2026%20Agentic%20Coding%20Trends%20Report.pdf
Research from Anthropic's Societal Impacts team reveals that while developers use AI in roughly 60% of their work, they report being able to "fully delegate" only 0-20% of tasks. AI serves as a constant collaborator, but using it effectively requires thoughtful set-up and prompting, active supervision, validation, and human judgment—especially for high-stakes work.
DevOpsDays Austin 2026
New Iron
Agathon.AI – AI consultancies
https://agathon.ai/insights/best-ai-consultancies-for-2026-navigating-the-agentic-era
AI consulting in 2026 shifts from strategy to implementation as enterprises demand partners who can actually build and deploy working AI systems, not just create PowerPoint decks.
APPENDIX: Detailed
Compare New Iron vs The Experts
McKinsey
BCG
Deloitte
Gartner
DevOpsDays Austin 2026
New Iron
APPENDIX: Detailed
Compare New Iron vs The Experts
Google Cloud
Anthropic
DevOpsDays Austin 2026
New Iron
APPENDIX: Detailed
Compare New Iron vs The Experts
Microsoft
Cross-firm synthesis
IBM
Agathon (boutique meta-analysis)
DevOpsDays Austin 2026
New Iron