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AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

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Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#211

Post by 47928485 »

tyre wrote: post #205
alexgotoi wrote: post #192

The thing people miss in these “replace juniors with AI” takes is that juniors were never mainly about cheap hands on keyboards. They’re the only people in the org who are still allowed to ask “dumb” questions without losing face, and those questions are often the only signal you get that your abstractions are nonsense. What AI does is remove a bunch of the humiliating, boring parts of being junior: hunting for the r…

This is a really good and under appreciated point. My recommendation to mid-level, senior, and staff engineers is to keep questioning decisions and create a culture where that’s encouraged. Junior devs do that naturally (if you have the culture) because they don’t know anything already. It’s great

> My recommendation to mid-level, senior, and staff engineers is to keep questioning decisions and create a culture where that’s encouraged.

Tell me you've never worked at FAANG without telling me you've never worked at FAANG...

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#212

Post by PaulKeeble »

beAbU wrote: post #128
simonw wrote: post #7

Relevant post by Kent Beck from 12th Dec 2025: The Bet On Juniors Just Got Better https://tidyfirst.substack.com/p/the-bet-on-juniors-just-got... > The juniors working this way compress their ramp dramatically. Tasks that used to take days take hours. Not because the AI does the work, but because the AI collapses the search space. Instead of spending three hours figuring out which API to use, they spend twenty minute…

Isn't the struggling with docs and learning how and where to find the answers part of the learning process? I would argue a machine that short circuits the process of getting stuck in obtuse documentation is actually harmful long term...

The thing is you need both. You need to have periods where you are reading through the docs learning random things and just expanding your knowledge, but the time to do that is not when you are trying to work out how to get a string into the right byte format and saved in the database as a blob (or whatever it is). Documentation has always has lots of different uses and the one that gets you answers to direct questions has improved a bit but its not really reliable yet so you are still going to have to check it.

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#214

Post by imiric »

psunavy03 wrote: post #133
bgwalter wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would a person who describes himself as a "full time content producer" know what is actually going on in the industry? https://substack.com/@kentbeck What software projects is he actively working on?

The dude literally invented Extreme Programming and was the first signer of the Agile Manifesto. He's forgotten more about software development than most people on this site ever knew.

Someone's accomplishments don't make them incapable of having bad opinions and being wrong. Cults of personality are harmful to progress. Opinions should hold the same weight and be held to the same scrutiny regardless of who voiced them.

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#215

Post by skydhash »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #197
skydhash wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you honestly think that’s how people learn? This is an example of a book on Common Lisp https://gigamonkeys.com/book/practical-a-simple-database What you usually do is follow the book instructions and get some result, then go to do some exploration on your own. There’s no walk in the dark trying to figure your own path. Once you learn what works, and what does not, then you’ll have a solid foundation to tackle mor…

I don't find it to be more torturous than that. In fact, if I were to go back and learn lisp again, I think I'd be a lot more motivated seeing how to build something interesting out of the gate rather than the toy programs I learned in my racket course. Also, for a lot of things, that is how people learn because there aren't good textbooks available.

Define interesting.

I was helping a few people on getting started with an Android Development bootcamp and just being able to run the default example and get their bearing around the IDE was interesting to them. And I remember when I was first learning python. Just doing basic variable declaration and arithmetic was interesting. Same with learning C and being able to write tic-tac-toe.

I think a lot of harm is being done by making beginner have expectations that would befit people that have years of experience. Like you can learn docker in 2 months to someone that doesn't even know Linux exists or have never encountered the word POSIX.

Please do read the following article: https://www.norvig.com/21-days.html

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#216

Post by psunavy03 »

imiric wrote: post #214
psunavy03 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dude literally invented Extreme Programming and was the first signer of the Agile Manifesto. He's forgotten more about software development than most people on this site ever knew.

Someone's accomplishments don't make them incapable of having bad opinions and being wrong. Cults of personality are harmful to progress. Opinions should hold the same weight and be held to the same scrutiny regardless of who voiced them.

That wasn't the question being asked. The question being asked was literally "what are this guy's accomplishments," and Kent Beck is a tech industry OG with a laundry list of them.

Of course he can be wrong; he's human. That wasn't my point.

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#217

Post by ares623 »

simonw wrote: post #7

Relevant post by Kent Beck from 12th Dec 2025: The Bet On Juniors Just Got Better https://tidyfirst.substack.com/p/the-bet-on-juniors-just-got... > The juniors working this way compress their ramp dramatically. Tasks that used to take days take hours. Not because the AI does the work, but because the AI collapses the search space. Instead of spending three hours figuring out which API to use, they spend twenty minute…

The cynic in me sees it as using juniors as a vehicle for driving up AI metrics. The seniors will be less critical reviewing AI output with a human shield/messenger.

Re: AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'

#220

Post by iwontberude »

alexgotoi wrote: post #192

The thing people miss in these “replace juniors with AI” takes is that juniors were never mainly about cheap hands on keyboards. They’re the only people in the org who are still allowed to ask “dumb” questions without losing face, and those questions are often the only signal you get that your abstractions are nonsense. What AI does is remove a bunch of the humiliating, boring parts of being junior: hunting for the r…

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