February was the month Amazon Q Developer stopped being a “helper” and started acting like a “senior engineer.” The headline was the launch of Q-driven Refactoring.

This isn’t just basic code completion. Technically, Q now uses a combination of Symbolic AI and LLMs to perform full repository dependency mapping. It can autonomously handle complex migrations, such as refactoring a legacy Java 8 microservice to Java 21. It identifies deprecated libraries, suggests modern replacements, and rewrites boilerplate to align with modern design patterns, such as Hexagonal Architecture.

We also saw the release of Q-Integrated Testing. It analyzes your CI/CD coverage reports and identifies the “dark spots” in your logic. Instead of you manually writing edge-case unit tests, Q generates the exact test cases needed to hit your coverage targets.

For those of us managing massive legacy codebases, February was the turning point where “technical debt” started feeling like a solvable problem rather than a permanent tax.