Satya Nadella’s Advice for Aspiring Tech Professionals: Master the Basics to Stay Ahead of AI

In a world rapidly reshaped by artificial intelligence, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella believes that one skill remains irreplaceable — strong fundamentals. In a recent interview with tech YouTuber Sajjaad Khade, Nadella emphasized that despite AI's increasing role in software development, it still depends heavily on the developer’s ability to think logically and design systems effectively.

“Just getting real fundamentals of software (if you're a software engineer), I think, matters a lot,” Nadella stated. “To me, having the ability to think computationally (is important).”

Nadella was responding to a question from Khade on what single piece of advice he would give to those starting a tech career in today’s AI-dominated landscape. He underlined the importance of learning to structure problems and think like a software architect — roles that AI can assist with, but not replace.

"The path to being that software architect gets speeded up," Nadella noted. "All of us are going to be more software architects."

Illustrating his point with a personal story, Nadella recounted an experience using GitHub Copilot — Microsoft’s AI-powered coding assistant — to solve a tricky bug in his own code. He was developing a feature that used a percentile filter and realized he needed to recall SQL concepts to resolve the issue effectively.

"Except I was thinking about it, it was a pretty cool issue, right? The issue was I did a filter, which was basically a percentile... creating a feature. But then I said, 'Oh man, this is, like, you know, I could, you know, recount what is a SQL, right?'"

This, he explained, is the future of software development — a collaborative relationship between human intuition and AI automation. While AI handles repetitive and mechanical parts of coding, humans must still guide the design, structure, and purpose of software systems.

Nadella also revealed that AI already writes a large share of Microsoft’s code. “I’d say maybe 20 per cent, 30 percent of the code that is inside of our repos today and some of our projects are probably all written by software,” he said during a previous conversation with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Beyond product development, Nadella has committed to preparing the next generation for this evolving reality. At Microsoft Build, he spoke about “agentic AI,” a concept redefining the technology stack and unlocking new developer opportunities.

In line with that vision, Microsoft has launched a major initiative in India aimed at training 500,000 students, educators, developers, and entrepreneurs by 2026. Partnering with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), the initiative includes the creation of an AI Centre of Excellence called “AI Catalysts” and the establishment of 20 AI productivity labs in National Skill Training Institutes and NIELIT centres across ten Indian states.

The goal: train 20,000 educators and foster a community of 100,000 AI developers, especially in rural and underrepresented areas.

Nadella’s message is clear — AI is transforming how we build software, but human creativity, logic, and a strong grasp of the basics are what will continue to set successful developers apart.