What you describe about the “center of the curve” hollowing out matches what I’m seeing from the inside. A lot of the work that would have gone to juniors is being either handed to automation tools or piled on a few senior people with AI assistance. Job titles still exist, but the entry rungs feel thinner and more contested.
The “out of distribution human” framing really resonates. Right now my survival strategy is to lean into weird combinations rather than trying to be a generic junior dev: mixing ops, security, automation, and AI glue work so I’m the one deciding where to use models instead of being the person they’re replacing.
I’m curious if you think there’s still any value in aiming for “standard” entry level SWE roles, or whether the only realistic play for new grads is to find niche, messy, cross-domain work and hope that’s far enough in the tail for long enough.