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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'

#31

Post by jjmarr »

elmean wrote: post #16

[flagged]

Week 1: 64 interns

Week 2: 32 interns

Week 3: 16 interns

Week 4: 8 interns

Week 5: 4 interns

Week 6: 2 interns

Week 7: 1 intern

Week 8: 0.5 interns

Is it possible to make it to the end of the summer without getting sliced in half?

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

#33

Post by mjr00 »

frostiness wrote: post #17

I can't help but feel this is backpedaling after the AI hype led to people entering university avoiding computer science or those already in changing their major. Ultimately we might end up with a shortage of developers again, which would be amusing.

I went to university 2005-2008 and I was advised by many people at the time to not go into computer science. The reasoning was that outsourced software developers in low-cost regions like India and SEA would destroy salaries, and software developers should not expect to make more than $50k/year due to the competition.

Even more recently we had this with radiologists, a profession that was supposed to be crushed by deep learning and neural networks. A quick Google search says an average radiologist in the US currently makes between $340,000 to $500,000 per year.

This might be the professional/career version of "buy when there's blood in the streets."

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

#34

Post by grogenaut »

simonw wrote: post #13
tastyfreeze wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously after 10-15 years of experience working as a developer AI will be a senior dev. Probably will get promoted to management with all that experience.

Promoting your best engineers to management sometimes gets you a great manager, but often gets you a mediocre or just-about-competent manager at the cost of a great engineer. I'm a big fan of the "staff engineer" track as a way to avoid this problem. Your 10-15 year engineers who don't vibe with management should be able to continue earning managerial salaries and having the biggest impact possible. https://staffeng.…

I still spend a week on annual reviews but you make great points all around.

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

#36

Post by RevEng »

twelvechess wrote: post #22

Most of the apps that I use regularly fail at least once a day nowadays. I think this is a direct cause of putting AI code in production without reviewing/QA.

While I have no particular love for AI generated code, I think this has nothing to do with AI. Software has been unreliable for over a decade. Companies have been rushing out half baked products and performing continual patches for many years. And it's our fault because we have just come to accept it.

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

#37

Post by orliesaurus »

Interesting take... I'm seeing a pattern... People think AI can do it all... BUT I see juniors often are the ones who actually understand AI tools better than seniors... That's what AWS CEO points out... He said juniors are usually the most experienced with AI tools, so cutting them makes no sense... He also mentioned they are usually the least expensive, so there's little cost saving... AND he warned that without a talent pipeline you break the future of your org... As someone who mentors juniors, I've seen them use AI to accelerate their learning... They ask the right questions, iterate quickly, and share what they find with the rest of us... Seniors rely on old workflows and sometimes struggle to adopt new tools... HOWEVER the AI isn't writing your culture or understanding your product context... You still need people who grow into that... So I'm not worried about AI replacing juniors... I'm more worried about companies killing their own future talent pipeline... Let the genies help, but don't throw away your apprentices.

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

#40

Post by grogenaut »

Nextgrid wrote: post #10

This is performative bullshit pandering to the increased skepticism around AI. He wouldn't be saying that if AI investment was still in full swing. I do agree with him about AI being a boon to juniors and pragmatic usage of AI is an improvement in productivity, but that's not news, it's been obvious since the very beginnings of LLMs.

So it's performative when the head of AWS says it and not news. But it's not performative when you say it and people should have listened to you in the comments?
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