What advise would I give to a career starter in 2026?

Before the rise of Agentic AI for software development, my go to advise for career starters used to be: don’t focus on broadening your skills for now, find your passion and work on deepening your expertise. Their “T” shape should ideally look like an “i” to begin with.

But what does developing an expertise even mean in the current landscape of doing things? If coding agents keep getting better at this pace, perhaps it makes more sense for the career starters to focus more on the broad skills first. Skills like exploratory learning, quality assurance, understanding the value delivery may even be essential going forward.