Less Python, more agents: how AI is changing the day-to-day for Nvidia’s engineers

Software engineers at Nvidia are spending less time writing Python code and more time building AI agents, according to company CEO Jensen Huang, who described the shift in an interview published by Nvidia.

Huang said engineers are increasingly focused on building agentic systems, benchmarks and guardrails rather than performing routine coding tasks. ‘These agentic systems are new skills, and now we have a lot of software engineers building agents. If you ask me, every one of my software engineers prefers to be building agents than to be writing Python code,’ he said.

Rather than writing code line by line, engineers are now designing systems that can automate repetitive tasks, work that Huang said still requires creativity and technical expertise. ‘You’re taking all the mundane work, and you’re trying to get this agent to do it. That requires imagination, that requires creativity, a lot of technology,’ he said.

AI agents are designed to break complex tasks into smaller steps, with each component handling a specific function to achieve a broader objective. Huang said this approach is creating new kinds of engineering work rather than eliminating existing roles. ‘The amount of work that we have to do to bring AI into the world is really quite incredible. So it’s creating a whole bunch of jobs. And, my software engineers love this,’ he said.

Huang has said Nvidia plans to deploy AI agents across different business functions to improve productivity, a push he has framed as part of a broader shift in how software engineering work is structured, rather than a reduction in the need for engineers.