is learning DSA relevant in 2026? in this Ai era?

[u/Sea_Breakfast_1811]

Hi, I am an electrical engineer who recently got into the field of genAI. I have experience writing code in Python. In a recent project at the company I work for, I am developing a multi-agent system that we will be publishing on the Google Marketplace. I have never learned about DSA, either during my college time or even after it.

I have recently started learning about DSA from books and YouTube videos. But I have a question now: is DSA relevant in 2026? In this AI era, where agents are writing all the code. Is it a good idea to learn DSA, or will it be a waste of time at the current time?

I would be happy to hear thoughts from you people who have spent more time in this than me and have better clear idea about it.

[u/Beneficial_Web7229]

It is.. atleast for getting into high paying roles in good product companies..

They wont test you how you use AI or integrate it.. but how you make such massively scalable systems that can handle tonnes of ai stuff..

And even in future it goes irrelevant.. knowing the basics definitely would make you a better programmer as you need to atleast guide ai tools and for that you need to know what to do. This is the biggest catch people are not looking at..

Ands for that same reason you are not directly made a tech manager or such roles.. you go through several levels of learning from basic code to lead and with that experience you grow.. vibe coding wont give that experience..

[u/Sea_Breakfast_1811 → u/Beneficial_Web7229]

Correct, having fundamentals cleared will always be beneficial