131–140 of 399 posts
Problem is not making juniors useless. They kind of are by definition. Problem is that now they have very little chance to become seniors.
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…
Strongly disagree with this. Bad junior devs might be useless, but I’ve seen good ones absolutely tear through features. Junior devs fresh out of school typically have tons of energy, haven’t been burned out, and are serious about wanting to get work done.
I bet you a senior could do with one good prompt to Claude what a junior would take a day to do before AI - and take time away from the senior.
I can't wait until the AI people realize that without developers' original ideas, AI has nothing new to steal from. We don't create, AI will spit out the same old concepts. What, you're gonna create the next generation of AI by training it on what the very same AI has already produced? C'mon now. You don't get technical creativity reflexes by using AI. This is technical stagnation in the making. By cannibalizing its…
It might be a mistake to assume tomorrow’s training looks like today’s. Unsupervised learning is a thing and a very hot research topic, precisely because it avoids some of today’s big problems with acquiring the vast amounts of training data necessary.
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…
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…
> The same ethos makes sense with AI, it's just that every company is trying to avoid paying that training tax.
Last time when a junior dev was added to my team I had a similar thought. But then talking with management I was informed that things went beyond just training.
The company had a social responsibility pledge and understanding with the local educational institutions. They had to pledge to be part of the internship and hiring activities every year. The company could not chose to be fair weather friends and try to recruit people only when they saw fit.
The other aspect was cost. A team made of only senior engineers was costly.
The last aspect was leveling up. Unless the company has lots of levels the team might end up lots of engineers at the same level. And with the inverted funnel nature of promotions it meant some engineers might end up waiting years for the promotion.
So, it was better to have teams with some junior, intermediate and experienced engineers. That way costs and promotion flows were controlled.
Now with AI the impact might go beyond junior devs. I see even the intermediate devs being impacted. It is more likely that companies think they can replace say 1 junior + 1 intermediate with 1 junior dev with AI. Or something along those lines.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I burnt out helping a junior on my team for the past few months. It was just terribly obvious she was feeding my responses directly into a chatbot to fix instead of actually understanding the issue. I can’t really even blame her, there isn’t much incentive to actually learn
I can't wait until the AI people realize that without developers' original ideas, AI has nothing new to steal from. We don't create, AI will spit out the same old concepts. What, you're gonna create the next generation of AI by training it on what the very same AI has already produced? C'mon now. You don't get technical creativity reflexes by using AI. This is technical stagnation in the making. By cannibalizing its…
Technically all the problems that almost any given business needs to be solved today has already been solved umpteen times over the years. There are no new problems that can't be solved by porting and/or combining old solutions.
I can't wait until the AI people realize that without developers' original ideas, AI has nothing new to steal from. We don't create, AI will spit out the same old concepts. What, you're gonna create the next generation of AI by training it on what the very same AI has already produced? C'mon now. You don't get technical creativity reflexes by using AI. This is technical stagnation in the making. By cannibalizing its…
Technically all the problems that almost any given business needs to be solved today has already been solved umpteen times over the years. There are no new problems that can't be solved by porting and/or combining old solutions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I burnt out helping a junior on my team for the past few months. It was just terribly obvious she was feeding my responses directly into a chatbot to fix instead of actually understanding the issue. I can’t really even blame her, there isn’t much incentive to actually learn
That sounds like a bad hire, not a junior. Why didn’t your manager help fix that?
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…
> Junior devs have always been useless > The same ethos makes sense with AI, it's just that every company is trying to avoid paying that training tax. Last time when a junior dev was added to my team I had a similar thought. But then talking with management I was informed that things went beyond just training. The company had a social responsibility pledge and understanding with the local educational institutions. Th…