Is there any hard evidence that using AI agents significantly improve the productivity in software development, excluding website development? I have been developing C(++) software for more than 30 years and I am still discovering things about the language that I had not fully grasped before, especially now that I am developing a C-compiler [1] myself. What I want to say is that developing quality software, a deep understanding of programming languages, is required. Good software engineering is not about produce lots of code, but keeping you code base lean/agile, avoiding technical depth, such that you velocity does not decrease over time. I am not convinced that that can be achieved with current day AI agents that only have a shallow understanding of software and that I doubt are able to have a deep understanding of large code base.

So, I wonder if a company excluding software developers who do not use AI agents, is not excluding a certain category of developers that do have a deep understanding of code and are able to keep a code base lean and make good architecture decisions.

I am also doubtful about the predictive value of coding interviews with respect to productivity, because I doubt whether coding is a significant factor in software development done in teams. Being able to spell perfectly does not automatically make you a author of best selling novels.

[1] https://github.com/FransFaase/MES-replacement