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AI is making junior devs useless

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Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#61

Post by fluidcruft »

Tharre wrote: post #52
recursivedoubts wrote: post #10

As I tell my students: juniors, you must write the code https://htmx.org/essays/yes-and/ Everyone else: we must let the juniors write the code. Seniors come from juniors. If you want seniors, you must let the juniors write the code.

> Seniors come from juniors. If you want seniors, you must let the juniors write the code. Companies know this as well, but this is a prisoner dilemma type situation for them. A company can skip out on juniors, and instead offer to pay seniors a bit better to poach them from other companies, saving money. If everyone starts doing this, everyone obviously loses - there just won't be enough new seniors to satisfy deman…

The way other professions do this is by burying trainees with debt and then writing off debt if they stay.

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#62

Post by kgeist »

slibhb wrote: post #2

I think this concern is overblown. AI is an incredible teaching tool. It's probably better for teaching/explaining than for writing code. This will make the next generation of junior devs far more effective than previous generations. Not because they're skipping the fundamentals...because they have a better grasp of the fundamentals due to back-and-forth with infinitely patient AI teachers.

Research [0] from Anthropic about juniors learning to code with AI/without:

>the AI group averaged 50% on the quiz, compared to 67% in the hand-coding group

And why would they do better? There's less incentive to learn because it's so easy to offload thinking to AI.

[0] https://www.anthropic.com/research/AI-assistance-coding-skil...

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#63

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

I did my first completely vibe coded not looking at a line of code implementation last year and my second this year.

I could care less about why either Claude, Codex or before that a developer was using a for loop or a while loop. I did and do care about architecture.

I’m no more going to review every line of code with AI than I am when I was delegating to more junior developers. I’m going to ask Claude Code about how it implemented something where I know there is an efficient way vs naive way, find and test corner cases via manual and automated tests and do the same for functional and non functional requirements.

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#64

Post by matt_heimer »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #10

As I tell my students: juniors, you must write the code https://htmx.org/essays/yes-and/ Everyone else: we must let the juniors write the code. Seniors come from juniors. If you want seniors, you must let the juniors write the code.

The real question will be; Do we need to pay the juniors to write code to become seniors?

If coding is an art then all the juniors will end up in the same places as other struggling artists and only the breakout artists will land paying coding gigs.

I'm sitting here on a weekend coding a passion project for no pay so I have to wonder.

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#65

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

BobbyJo wrote: post #45

Junior devs have always been useless. You used to give them tasks that take them a week or two even though a senior engineer could do it in a couple hours, not because you wanted them to contribute, but because you wanted them to learn to contribute. The same ethos makes sense with AI, it's just that every company is trying to avoid paying that training tax. Why turn a junior into a senior yourself if you can get the…

What’s the importance of then learning to contribute if they will probably jump ship anyway when they get good enough? Your HR department is not going to give them a market rate raise to keep them - see salary compression and inversion. A junior developer just isn’t worth the investment.

I have never once told my manager “it would be really nice to have a few junior developers. It would really help us get this project done on time”. They do “negative work”.

Yes not having juniors become seniors is an industry problem. But my goal is to reach my company’s quarterly and anual goals - not what’s going to happen 10 years from now.

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#67

Post by pluc »

PetoU wrote: post #56
pluc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "new ideas" with AI. Claiming the opposite is a fundamental misunderstanding of the technology.

that's only partially true. AI can innovate in synthetic-realm of novel ideas, while real-world novelty will remain untouched. There are different types of novelties

If AI could innovate it wouldn't be a public product. It would be a cash cow. Why give your customers the ability to come up with new and amazing ideas when you can just keep it for yourself and launch a thousand products? USA is a capitalist society. It doesn't share profitable ideas.

And if AI was really about productivity they'd be talking about doing more faster with the same workforce, not reducing the workforce.

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#68

Post by lokar »

BobbyJo wrote: post #45

Junior devs have always been useless. You used to give them tasks that take them a week or two even though a senior engineer could do it in a couple hours, not because you wanted them to contribute, but because you wanted them to learn to contribute. The same ethos makes sense with AI, it's just that every company is trying to avoid paying that training tax. Why turn a junior into a senior yourself if you can get the…

Yep. This is why many companies have a terminal level with “up or out “ rules. Before that level you are not fully independent and require too much supervision. No one wants a Jr engineer with 10 years of experience.

I see a lot of Sr engineers get very frustrated by how much time they have to spend helping Jr engineers. But, that’s the job, or at least a big part of it.

Or at least it was.

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#69

Post by sega_sai »

I recently read a similar discussion in the context of AI in science and PhD students. And the point the author was making that the goal of having PhD students is NOT to produce academic research, but to train people. I think the same idea applies here. Somebody still needs to train people, and the companies will probably need to ensure that they have resources for that, as there will not be enough senior people for all the tasks.

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#70

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG »

BobbyJo wrote: post #45

Junior devs have always been useless. You used to give them tasks that take them a week or two even though a senior engineer could do it in a couple hours, not because you wanted them to contribute, but because you wanted them to learn to contribute. The same ethos makes sense with AI, it's just that every company is trying to avoid paying that training tax. Why turn a junior into a senior yourself if you can get the…

I mean, if we’re doing this, let’s be honest and go as far as mid-level engineers whose work needs constant correction, as well as the many, many senior engineers out there who are senior only because they lucked out in getting the title during the artificial dev scarcity of the ZIRP eras.
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