How Software Engineers Actually Use Coding Agents in 2026

I talk to a lot of software engineers here in Toronto.

People tell me that coding agents are the biggest change they’ve ever seen.

Here’s how people are actually using them in 2026.

Watch the video on YouTube

Topics from this week’s video

• How software engineering is changing in 2026

  • Why coding agents feel like a major shift

  • How the video combines survey data, demos, and real engineer workflows

• Today’s coding-agent landscape

  • Which tools are most used and how quickly rankings are changing

  • How much AI now appears in daily engineering work

  • The divide between active users and skeptics

• Workflows engineers are adopting

  • Patterns around Claude Code, Codex, MCPs, skills, and newer tools

  • Why developers often use multiple agents

  • The challenge of managing sessions and context

• Practical ways to get more from agents

  • Using Gemini to summarize and query videos

  • Adding plugins or skills for stronger defaults

  • Steering agents mid-task and turning rough ideas into specs

• Building, debugging, and shipping with agents

  • Creating features with CLI tools and agent help

  • Running test, diagnose, redeploy, and retry loops

  • Connecting agents to Slack, commits, reviews, and hooks

• Cost control and workflow upgrades

  • Keeping instructions minimal and compacting context

  • Using Gitingest for cheaper codebase Q&A

  • Reducing image size before pasting into agents

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Rejection is secretly a good thing because it’s the filtering mechanism of the universe for removing all of the things that are not going to make you happy.

Mark Manson