I don't think 5 years is necessary. I think after two years of this agentic orchestration if you rarely touch code yourself skill will degrade to the point they won't be able to write anything non-trivial without assistance.

Depends how long you've done it, and how much the landscape has changed since then. I can still hop back into SQL and it all comes back to me though I haven't done it regularly at all for nearly 10 years.

In the web front-end world I'd be pretty much a newbie. I don't know any of the modern frameworks, everything I've used is legacy and obsolete today. I'd ramp up quicker than a new junior because I understand all the concepts of HTTP and how the web works, but I don't know any of the modern tooling.

How much do you think Linus Torvalds has coded over the last decade? Why is he still able to do his job?

His job is reviewing.

What infrastructure has gone through the last 15 years would like a word.

Half the people I work with can't do imperative jQuery interfaces. So what I guess. I can't code assembly.

A programming language is still an additional language with all the benefits of being multilingual.

AI will kill that.

In 5 years coding skills will matter as much as being able to operate an elevator. (sadly)

It won't be 5 years, it'll be less than a year. When you don't exercise, your muscles atrophy. It's the same for any other skill. I use to speak conversational french in college, fast forward 10 years later and my understanding is no different than a casual "Emily in Paris" fan.

It'll be the same here, the only question is if those that do exercise will be able to command better salaries. I think this is possible but not with the current political climate.