This article seems completely out of line with reality, maybe I am living on a different planet.

I have never heard of anyone following those SDLC steps rigorously and sequentially. Things tend to be much more intertwined, combined, and iterative than this suggests.

Even if agents were writing the code, someone would still need to identify what actually needs to be done - requirements don'y magically pop out of nowhere.

He doesn't know a single person(!?) still writing code by hand? Even the most hardcore believers in coding agents that I know still review and revise code by hand. Even the sota models spit out garbage if not carefully guided and reviewed (and even then quality is still behind an experienced human engineer for anything non-trivial).

This all seems so far from the reality I live in...