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AI is making junior devs useless

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Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#301

Post by array_key_first »

nerdsniper wrote: post #267
array_key_first wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All these tools only replace mechanical aspects, not thinking ones. AI is truly unique and unprecedented in that way. A spellchecker is purely mechanical, it just helps you spell your essay right. But it won't make your essay good, or help you write the right essay.

Integration in calculus often required me to "guess" a strategy ahead of time. It was more similar to searching for moves in chess than solving long division. Some moves would make it easier vs. harder and some would seemingly be a dead end. WolframAlpha usually got to the correct answer, but often used a non-human strategy for integration. Generally, the best way to do it was simpler than what WolframAlpha's "step-b…

It's a different degree sure, but it's a big enough leap I consider it a different thing. It's similar to paying someone to do your homework or write your essays. Your critical thinking approaches zero, which is really bad for education.

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#302

Post by borroka »

This weekend, I received confirmation that, for data analysis and modeling, coding agents represent a qualitative leap forward comparable to the widespread adoption of personal computers.

I stopped doing scientific research years ago, but before moving on to other things, I had, like many others, I imagine, certain problems that I wanted to study, but given the lack of time and other concerns, I would never have picked them up again. I launched Codex, and it managed to untangle old files and analyses, find datasets that I didn't know where they had ended up, launch analyses under my guidance, and build visualizations that would have taken me days, if not weeks, to complete.

Of course, I have experience, I know what needs to be done, and I had to correct some errors made by Codex (I am paying for Codex and Gemini now, but I could go back to paying for Claude too), but I was amazed by the quality of the analyses.

To give an example, I had a dataset of weather observations that I had downloaded from a website years ago, hundreds of time series across weather stations. Codex managed to recover the missing time series, even though the website is no longer active, by first comparing the downloaded data with the data I had, and then also finding a digital elevation model.

Now I will guide Codex in developing a model of extreme events that will allow me to have a spatio-temporal model of extreme events that, without Codex, I would never have had the time or inclination to build.

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#303

Post by NotMichaelBay »

qball wrote: post #282
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…

>Prospective parents are saying "fuck that shit" and simply choosing not to have children. Or in other words, they've been priced out of the market. If there will be no sociofinancial niche for their children to inhabit this is in fact the rational course of action. See also: South Korean current birth rates.

> See also: South Korean current birth rates.

For anyone wondering, the South Korean birth rate is currently ~0.7: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-born-per-woman?c...

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#304

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

skydhash wrote: post #287
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First let’s define roles. I am not just pulling them out of thin air. https://www.levels.fyi/blog/swe-level-framework.html Junior - everything is spelled out in excruciating detail, the what and the how. They are going to be slow, not know best practices, constantly bug other developers and you srs going to have to correct them a lot. Mid level developer - little ambiguity on the business case or their role in it. Th…

From the article As an Entry Level Engineer, you’ll be expected to develop and maintain lower complexity components under the guidance and tutelage of more experienced team members. That does not really contradict my point. > If I have to define everything in great detail anyway, why not just use AI? You don't have to define everything. And to do so is detrimental to their growth. If you're their mentor, you're suppo…

Okay. But that still doesn’t answer the question.

Why should I hire a junior who doesn’t know the what or the how. Instead of hiring a mid level developer who could be an excellent developer who can turn business requirements into code and is more than likely better at certain things than I am since they live and breathe it everyday and can both do the work without supervision and can offer valuable advice and say something that might convince me that I didn’t think things clearly?

Reminding you that the difference above a mid level developer and a “senior”/“senior+” is scope and ambiguity not necessarily technical depth in one area.

What does a junior developer bring to the table that I should use my open req on?

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#305

Post by fdgg »

array_key_first wrote: post #301
nerdsniper wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Integration in calculus often required me to "guess" a strategy ahead of time. It was more similar to searching for moves in chess than solving long division. Some moves would make it easier vs. harder and some would seemingly be a dead end. WolframAlpha usually got to the correct answer, but often used a non-human strategy for integration. Generally, the best way to do it was simpler than what WolframAlpha's "step-b…

It's a different degree sure, but it's a big enough leap I consider it a different thing. It's similar to paying someone to do your homework or write your essays. Your critical thinking approaches zero, which is really bad for education.

Not just education... it affects how people make decisions throughout life. In other words it makes a person ill-prepared to deal with the stuff that happens in life.

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#307

Post by throw4847285 »

orangecoffee wrote: post #276
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have to do anything except keep my head down, do my job and enjoy my well earned autonomy. I’m definitely not going to try to convince my skip, skip, skip manager to change their hiring policies. It’s not like my line level manager has any power over anything Even when I was at a startup before 2020 and I did have the ear of the CTO and the founders I knew my ultimate mission was to do what was needed to get…

Your getting unnecessarily down voted by devs who want to feel morally superior, but don't have any concrete answer to the conundrum you've posed. It's about money, and the actual solution would be to lower pay at senior level and give it to juniors, with some lock in agreed by the junior in exchange for this grace. I doubt the vast majority will agree to this.

They're getting downvoted because they are a miserable misanthrope, and it is our responsible as people in a society to punish obviously antisocial behavior.

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#308

Post by seanmcdirmid »

orangecoffee wrote: post #281
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 I think that is a bit presumptuous, even if there is a hint of truth there. Just because a kid didn't grow up around computers and programming shouldn't exclude them from the tech path or mark them as imposters/pretenders.

It does not exclude. But the expectation of larger money has to go. They're literally competing with 100 dollars a month.

That is more a sign of our messed up society. Yes, techies earn middle class salaries that are hard for everyone else to earn, but the issue was everyone else falling behind, not techies racing ahead (our salaries are extravagant becuase…we can buy a house like our very normal salary parents could).

I agree it definitely distorts the market because what else are kids to do?

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#309

Post by kazinator »

keeda wrote: post #231

I maintain that in the future, any person wishing to learn any skill (not just coding!) will need to willingly eschew the use of AI when learning until they have "built the muscles". The literature is clear that repeated, hands-on practice is really the only way to build skills. I suspect the progression will be "No AI until intuition (whatever that is for that skill)" -> "Gradual use of AI to understand where it fal…

> The literature is clear that repeated, hands-on practice is really the only way to build skills.

The centuries of literature we have on this contrasts hands-on practice with theory: not actually doing the thing, but studying how other people do it, in order to gain knowledge that will be helpful when you get your hands into it.

This is different: this is like having a slave do it for you.

We know from history that the slave owners didn't know how to do the work. E.g. kings and feudal lords didn't know how to herd animals or raise grains, etc.

Re: AI is making junior devs useless

#310

Post by doginasuit »

I'd find it very understandable if true. I also think there will be some junior devs that it will supercharge, and they will eventually make some of the things we only dreamed about. If you don't actually enjoy coding but are starting out as a coder, it's probably not going to help. If you are thirsty to understand and do things, it is an incredible time to start out.
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