Over the past year, developer experience has been defined by platform engineering and AI, which are merging. But only the organizations that understand AI enablement, via a platform strategy, will stand out in the new year, writes regular contributor Jennifer Riggins.

In other tech stories we’re following today:

• We’ve two articles on career paths in the age of AI. With AI automating tasks that once trained junior developers, new engineers must now focus on architectural thinking and the ability to guide AI systems, counsels Roman Eloshvili, founder and CEO of XData Group, in a contributed piece. And Jennifer Riggins spoke to a dozen engineering leaders. Find their advice here.
• OpenTelemetry may not ultimately “save” observability in 2026, but it should go a long way by improving standardization for instrumentation and interoperability between different tools, empowering not only the in-house expert but all stakeholders, B. Cameron Gain writes.

As fast as the old year passes, it's been heartening to see people preserving the work of those who came before us. The Computer History Museum, Stack Overflow and countless nonprofits and foundations have carried yesterday's operating systems, technical discussions and other creative works forward into a fresh new year. As our technology continues to evolve through time — some becoming obsolete,...

When Argo scales, visibility breaks. Hitting the Argo Ceiling means tab fatigue, glue code, and lost engineering time. Join Harness and TNS on January 20 to learn how enterprises fix GitOps sprawl without replacing their tools.