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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'

#61

Well, yeah. Then who will become the senior engineers in 10-15 years?

These people are working on destroying the planet to make more money, they absolutely do not care. Our society isn't set up to punish them, but encourage such behavior to even more extremes (see datacenter build outs causing water shortages, electricity hikes, and cancer in poor communities; nearly every politician capitulating on such actions because they don't know better).

I wish people would get off the "AI is the worst thing for the environment" bandwagon. AI and data centers as a whole aren't even in the top 100 emitters of pollution and never will be.

If you want to complain about tech companies ruining the environment, look towards policies that force people to come into the office. Pointless commutes are far, far worse for the environment than all data centers combined.

Complaining about the environmental impact of AI is like plastic manufacturers putting recycling labels on plastic that is inherently not recycleable and making it seem like plastic pollution is every day people's fault for not recycling enough.

AI's impact on the environment is so tiny it's comparable to a rounding error when held up against the output of say, global shipping or air travel.

Why don't people get this upset at airport expansions? They're vastly worse.

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

#63
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…

We had 3 interns this past summer - with AI I would say they were VERY capable of generating results quickly. Some of the code and assumptions were not great, but it did help us push out some releases quickly to alleviate customer issues. So there is a tradeoff with juniors. May help quickly get features out, may also need some refactoring later.

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

#64
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…

For an experienced engineer, working out the syntax, APIs, type issues, understanding errors, etc is the easy part of the job. Larger picture issues are the real task.

But for many Jr engineers it’s the hard part. They are not (yet) expected to be responsible for the larger issues.

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

#65

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…

is this just a janky summary cause you added zero new viewpoints

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

#66
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…

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?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Beck

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

#67

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…

ON TOP OF IT ALL, juniors are the ones who bring novel tools to the desk MOST times...i.e. I had no clue the Google IDE gave you free unlimited credits despite the terrible UI...but a young engineer told me about it!!

I'm just shocked people aren't clueing into the fact that tech companies are trying to build developer dependence on these things to secure a "rent" revenue stream. But hey, what do I know. It's just cloud hyper scaling all over again. Don't buy and drive your own hardware. Rent ours! Look, we built the metering and everything!

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

#68

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…

Sorry but what the heck is up with all the ellipses in this comment?

They're trying really hard to make sure you know they didn't write their post with an LLM? /s

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

#69

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?

It's performative when you talk whatever the market wants to hear rather than sticking to an opinion (no matter how flawed it is). This behavior reminds me of the cryptobros that were hailing NFTs/web3 as the next best thing since sliced bread, and when that didn't came to pass quietly moved onto the next grift (AI) with the same playbook.

(also I’m just talking out of my ass on a tech forum under a pseudonym instead of going to well-publicized interviews)

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