Episode
AI Cloud CTO: Which Engineering Skills Are Most In-Demand Right Now
- Podcast
- Beyond Coding
- Published
- Jul 1, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3524
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Summary
Danila Shtan runs engineering at Nebius, one of the biggest AI clouds in the world, and he told me exactly which engineers he hires on the spot. There are only hundreds of people on the planet with the skill he wants most, and it is not the one you are grinding on. We get into which engineering skills are actually scarce and well paid today, and which ones are quietly on the way out. In this episode we cover: The engineering skills in highest demand right now and which ones are on the way out Why an AI cloud CTO restricts Claude Code inside his own company Dan's rule for merging any AI-written code into production Why working with an agent is like managing a junior engineer The interview question that surfaces top tier engineer qualities Why he still runs algorithm interviews today If you are an engineer trying to work out where the value sits now that agents write the easy code, this is a straight answer from the person building the infrastructure underneath all of it. Timestamps: 00:00:00 - AI Agents doing everything is a lie 00:00:44 - What Nebius Actually Does 00:04:31 - The Engineers In Highest Demand Right Now 00:06:58 - Inside the Hiring Process 00:08:12 - The Bootcamp: You Join the Company, Not a Team 00:10:51 - Why You Can't Use AI in Their Interviews 00:16:31 - Why He Banned the Word "Headcount" 00:22:25 - Why a CTO Is Not a Technical Role 00:24:49 - The One Skill Every Manager Needs 00:25:48 - Why Smart People Fail at This 00:28:17 - "The Promise of Agents Is Bullshit" 00:31:39 - How AI Multiplies Your Baseline Skill 00:35:32 - Why an AI Agent Is Just a Junior Engineer 00:36:57 - Why He Won't Let His Team Use Claude Code 00:37:46 - His Rule for Merging AI-Written Code 00:40:28 - The Interview That Predicts Great Engineers 00:42:32 - From…