Bilkent University
Department of Computer Engineering
SEMINAR
What to Keep, What to Change: Preparing CS Graduates for the Era of Agentic Coding
Dr. Mercan Topkara
Hashtag In Real Life
Abstract: Two years ago, a computer science graduate from our school would mostly write and debug code, line by line as part of their daily job as a software engineer. Today, working with agentic tools like Claude Code, that same engineer describes intent, directs a swarm of agents across many repositories, co-designing with agents what to build, how to verify it, and how to deploy and maintain it in production. However complex and sophisticated, the tasks which an agent can do on its own is no longer part of the job; employers are now paying for the amplified productivity through putting agents and AI to best use to get product outcomes. This two-hour working session is intended to facilitate the discussion among Bilkent CS faculty about what has actually changed in the field and how we can respond. We will relate the current hiring bar, what building real products now requires, and the implications for undergraduate computer science education. Together, we will work through which fundamentals stay load-bearing and how our courses should adjust, so our graduates can make the most out of the rapidly improving AI technology and information technology industry landscape.
Mercan Topkara, Bilkent CS (2000) alum, works at the intersection of natural language processing, content protection, and large-scale AI/ML systems, with a career spanning foundational research, industry leadership, and two companies of her own. Her Ph.D. work at Purdue University (2007) on natural language watermarking pioneered linguistics-based methods for protecting digital text and remains widely cited, anchoring a body of work that has drawn 2,500+ citations. She spent seven years at IBM Research developing enterprise collaboration analytics and social media intelligence systems. Across ~20 years in industry, she has built AI/ML for platforms serving millions of daily users at JW Player, Teachers Pay Teachers, and Luminary, rising to CTO and later Chief AI Officer at Sounder. She now leads Hashtag In Real Life. She holds 10 patents and 30+ peer-reviewed papers, and regularly organizes events in the AI/ML and entrepreneurship communities.
DATE: July 03, 2026 Friday @ 13:30
Place: EA 409