#DeveloperDiscussion #AIinTech #JuniorDevelopers
Hey fellow developers! 👋 Let’s talk about the future of junior-level developers in the tech industry. After some conversations with my peers, I’ve come to the conclusion that the barrier to entry for juniors is only going to get thicker over time.
Here are some key points to consider:
– The value juniors can bring to a company can now be quickly replicated by intermediates/seniors with the help of AI
– AI is becoming more accurate and can assist juniors in learning at a faster pace than ever before
– Juniors have the advantage of leveraging AI to get immediate answers and direction for tasks
But fear not! 🤖 AI is a tool, not something to be scared of. Here’s a possible solution for junior developers to thrive in this evolving landscape:
– Embrace AI as a learning tool to improve your skills at a faster rate
– Focus on developing unique skills that set you apart from AI-assisted tasks
– Constantly push yourself to improve and stay curious about new technologies and trends
What are your thoughts on this topic? How do you see junior developers adapting to the changing industry? Let’s continue the discussion! 🚀 #TechIndustry #FutureofDevelopment
So here’s the thing. People die. Or at least, they retire. There’s always going to be need for junior devs in the hiring pipeline. They may not get paid as much as there are so many of them now, but they’re going to be hired and probably need to be slowly trained for years because they’ll have to take over the shit show as soon as senior so and so jumps ship.
The barrier to entry will always exclude AI use
Prospective employers want to know (or at least see) you can do the job without the use of AI, they aren’t going to factor in “well they can just ramp up using Gippity”.
AI is a means to an end, it’s a tool, you still need a depth of skills in order to use it to maximize your output, otherwise you’re just hoping something sticks or it’s blind luck.
You’re assuming we have a static amount of work. We don’t. Every engineer has a year + backlog of things to do. We’ll always need more people because we’ll always have new ideas. We’re not going to just sit on the extra cash. We’re going to reinvest it to gain more market share.
We don’t have a static amount of companies in the world. More people are employed by restaurants right now than any other time in history. As things have gotten easier in restaurants, more restaurants exist. More junior people are hired than ever.
There is always work the senior doesn’t want to do, that they will want to pawn off.
AI isn’t as smart as everyone wants to believe. Gen AI isn’t the future productivity killer. Open APIs that talk to one another are. That requires a ton of trust, security, and willingness to work with one another at no/low financial benefit. It just won’t happen for 100 years. When it does, it’ll require a ton of engineering.
To your point, our jobs will change, and that’s OK.
Juniors will have a harder time because there are a lot of them and companies generally don’t have room for as many juniors as the education system is cranking out compared to the established base of experienced software engineers. It really has nothing to do with AI.
College grads also aren’t always getting an accurate picture of what skills employers are needing. A lot of people entering the field only think of full stack vs front vs back, this is an extremely shallow view of the field. Being a software engineer is a lot more than being a framework monkey.
Written by an ai
So much dooms day in this sub. Go outside, this is not reality
I have had this chat in other places
The conclusions we found were similar, but we kept on going. There will still be need for mid and senior, and you can’t get those without hiring juniors. I can see places like the usa, due to remote jobs, poaching seniors and mids from other countries to aleviate this, but eventually they will have to hire juniors.
So either some companies will take the hit, or most likely, the junior skill set will change and they will be closer to pms/business analists, knowledge wise.
I work at a large social media tech company and while the bar to entry has certainly crept up, it has little to do with seniors doing more work with AI help, although that is true as well.
Having been here for a long time I can tell you juniors are the fuel to the organization. Without fresh blood, the team loses energy, drive, ambition and all that eventually sours into a dysfunctional and cynical team. Junior engineers require mentorship and that gives fulfillment to their mentors. They’re also there to even the calibration of a level, allowing upward mobility for existing engineers.
All this is necessary for a functioning ecosystem of a tech company, without even considering the skills of the junior engs.
Through my company we have access to a higher level than the free copilot version. But you need to get approved to use it. My manager got our team access and it’s super helpful, but it also spits out a good amount of incorrect information.
I know from real time experience than the intern I was mentoring was unable to distinguish the wrong information from copilot and could tell when I was reviewing his PR.
So I think that while AI is a helpful tool, seniors or mid level engineers are still going to have the advantage of looking and being able to determine what is correct or incorrect.
It’s a super super nice tool, but it’s a tool, not a replacement for skill or experience.
Seems like everything is in an interesting place overall.
I was laid off earlier this year and doing a job search as a senior engineer, 15 years experience.
Multiple positions I interviewed for specifically pointed out that they weren’t hiring any junior or new grads for this team.
I think there’s a bit of a disconnect as you said, where people think they can get more than twice the output out of a senior engineer with double the salary. But at some point, you start running out of Senior engineers because no Junior engineers were trained up. A lot of places just seem to be hoping that other companies will be taking the hit of training up Junior engineers for them to poach later.
Obviously there’s a lot of stuff going on. There seems to be a lot more new computer science graduates. All the big company layoffs and the smaller companies doing copycat layoffs to boost their stock price means engineers are trickling down and squeezing out Juniors and new grads. The culture of job hopping, which makes total sense given how company loyalties work, also means that a company training up a new grad doesn’t ensure them a senior who knows their system like it used to. So the value proposition is a little worse. Again a problem corporate America has gotten self into but seems like the reality.
I’m really not sure how much AI is contributing to all of that because it can also make a new grad a lot more productive.
Grey beard here – being a teammate is so much more than being able to simply code and net number of Jira tickets output. Domain knowledge , capacity to collaborate , leadership abilities , capacity to come up with creative solutions are skills that have to be cultivated.
Eventually, the seniors are going to build the systems that companies want right now, and then the market is going to cycle back to wanting juniors for the cheap labor that can be trained, and promoted.
>In my opinion, as a junior,
Get more real world tech industry experiences before making these kind of junior assumptions.
If your ticket can be hashed out with just using gpt I’d be worried about that job.
man
Seniors had to start as juniors and lots of people die, retire, or change careers all day every day.