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AI is making junior devs useless

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Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#151

Post by voxl »

rco8786 wrote: post #29
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 The average tenure of a person in engineering role is so short that very few employers are thinking about developing individuals anymore. The actual way this gets approached is "If you want seniors, you must hire seniors". I'm not sure how this plays out now. But it's easy to imagine a scenario like the COBOL writers of the last…

It's a self inflicted wound. Companies do not reward loyalty. They do not give out raises congruent with what you can find if you leave. Business-types unirionically think seasonal layoffs is a "good thing." Self hemorrhaging your institutional knowledge is insanity

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#152

Post by [deleted] »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #121
addaon wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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”. I have. A good junior can do in a week what a senior with domain knowledge can do in a half day, with only an hour of mentoring along the way. This isn’t a great exchange rate per dollar (juniors are cheaper than seniors, but not that much cheap…

And as a senior+ with domain knowledge, with AI I can do the work of two juniors without the communication overhead + do all of the project management, dealing with stakeholders, etc. But you don’t build seniors, you build capable mid level ticket takers who jump for more money at the first opportunity.

[deleted]

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#153

Post by bluefirebrand »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #148
torginus wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea of 'junior' needs to be refined a bit. By the time I got my first job I've been coding for years, and have built rather substantial things. In fact, in terms of pure coding ability, I was probably past the initial, fast part of my growth. As should have others, which the university education system should have made sure. The fact that some people come out of 4+ years of software engineering education…

I'm not sure if enthusiasts are the exception rather than the norm? I've noticed in the last few years, a lot of junior engineers do not have much active coding experience outside of their university education, they aren't the traditional "obsessed with computers and programming as kids".

There has been a much higher demand for software developers over the past 10-15 years than there are people who are obsessed with computers and programming

If you look at the general topic shift on HN over the years it's obvious most people are getting into tech because they want power and money, not for love of tech

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#154

Post by bluefirebrand »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #132
elephanlemon wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And how do they compare to what a senior dev can do with Claude Code/Codex? 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 bet you a senior could do with one good prompt to Claude what a junior would take a day to do before AI

It would still be a waste of a seniors time to write that prompt. They should have more important things to spend time on

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#155

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

Retric wrote: post #149
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And have you compared the output of three junior devs to hiring one mid level ticket taker who isn’t that much more expensive + AI coding agents?

You don’t want 3 Jr devs at the same time because of diminishing returns. Most projects have grunt work where attention to detail is important but experience doesn’t really help much. AI can quickly come up with alt text for images, but ensuring it’s actually useful for someone using a screen reader is a different story. 1 new Jr every 2 years works quite well for a team of 7+ developers.

And that junior dev will probably leave in 2 years because HR won’t allow you to give them a raise to match their market comp.

But with a team of 7, I can’t believe that giving them all a Claude Code subscription wouldn’t be much cheaper and much more productive than hiring a junior. A junior though with AI is more dangerous than a junior without.

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#156

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #154
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how do they compare to what a senior dev can do with Claude Code/Codex? 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 bet you a senior could do with one good prompt to Claude what a junior would take a day to do before AI It would still be a waste of a seniors time to write that prompt. They should have more important things to spend time on

And it’s not a waste of their time to have to give detailed requirements and troubleshooting steps to a junior developer, constantly being interrupted, and then having to check their work thoroughly?

If you have to be that detailed anyway - you might as well use AI.

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#157

Post by rsynnott »

lokar wrote: post #141
rsynnott wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gather that quite a lot of companies are using dumb metrics which would show this as _good_ behaviour, these days.

Sure, but the overriding metric should be the opinion of the Sr engineer who is supposed to be mentoring and supervising the Jr

You'd hope, but, y'know, AI mania.

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#158

Post by Retric »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #155
Retric wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t want 3 Jr devs at the same time because of diminishing returns. Most projects have grunt work where attention to detail is important but experience doesn’t really help much. AI can quickly come up with alt text for images, but ensuring it’s actually useful for someone using a screen reader is a different story. 1 new Jr every 2 years works quite well for a team of 7+ developers.

And that junior dev will probably leave in 2 years because HR won’t allow you to give them a raise to match their market comp. But with a team of 7, I can’t believe that giving them all a Claude Code subscription wouldn’t be much cheaper and much more productive than hiring a junior. A junior though with AI is more dangerous than a junior without.

That’s not really an either or situation, you can have 7 team members with Claud Code and 1 Jr without.

I’ve seen many people stick around for a surprising amount of time while severely under compensated. I suspect that’s why HR does it.

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#159

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

xtracto wrote: post #150
estimator7292 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the difference between being an engineer and being a clock puncher. You don't care about the business, you don't care about the product, you don't care about society as a whole. So long as you get your paycheck and your annual pay bump, fuck absolutely everyone and everything else, right? Don't worry, just leave all your problems for someone else to fix. I'm sure that won't have any lasting consequences at al…

Sweet summer child. I was once opinionated and driven as you are now. I remember when I got out of college, I also thought like that of the mediocre clock punchers. Now at my 45 years, I couldn't care less for whatever grand objective the current company I work for has. I exchange my knowledge and time for hard cash, and let the owners , ceo and whatnot run with their grandiose vision. I only want to be left alone. W…

Funny enough, the more I got into this mindset, I slept better, made more money, and got more autonomy.

Once directors and CxOs know that you are completely aligned with the business goals and ignore everything else that “doesn’t make the beer taste better”, they trust your judgement and basically leave you alone.

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#160

Post by michaelhoney »

ffsm8 wrote: post #143
nostrademons wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that the same dynamic is playing out on a much larger scale with children. A child is far more helpless than a junior engineer - at least a junior engineer can feed themselves, wipe their own butt, avoid destroying the room, and generally keep themselves alive. Everybody wants to offload the cost of raising children to parents, because the economic benefits aren't realized for 25+ years yet the costs…

The Birthrate dropping has multiple causes, none of them have any relation to the topic at hand It's a negative (from the perspective of reproduction) confluence of both social and economic developments. E.g. the death of the traditional gender roles has inevitably reduced birth rates - for multiple reasons to boot. Because on the one hand, the women has am easier time not to commit and just sleep around, consequentl…

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