3 ms·

I laugh every time that I read these claims. How long have you been at it?

daniel_iversen 1y ago
I agree the parent statement seemed a bit "incomplete", high level and hasty, however it's not inconceivable to me that AI will continue to help even the senior devs be way more productive - and even to double productivity (or more..) feels very plausible.
kypro 1y ago
If you're a senior dev and not already 20% more productive from AI you're doing something wrong. In 2-3 years 1 dev will easily be able to do what 2 devs could 5 years ago – e.g. you can half your senior dev team and operate at the same velocity as what you were previously able to. Given this and (other market factors) I don't see demand for senior devs being so high that a company would need to hire a junior dev because they are completely unable to hire a senior dev. The tech job market isn't likely to get that hot again in my opinion. So yes, given this broadly speaking junior devs are not needed. If someone is a junior dev and can't find a job they'll need to prove they can function at a senior level if they want to be employable going forward. But this is basically the market today anyway. But these are my predictions – you can disagree and I'm sure I will be out to some degree, but I'd put money on being mostly correct in these claims.
- voidUpdate 1y ago
  Well hopefully the amount of companies needing senior devs will double in 2-3 years then otherwise we wont be able to find a job since we'll have been automated away
- looofooo0 1y ago
  Jevons paradox here, if you increase the efficiency of anything, the demand goes up, not down. So any Dev-AI Cyborg will be in hot demand.
- johnbellone 1y ago
  Productivity enhancements are one thing, but the full elimination of junior development roles is completely different. The dynamics also change with the size and scale of the team and company (components, services, multiple customers, etc). The role will change and individuals will become more productive. These tools are impressive and moving in the right direction to your prediction. But, personally, I think it is naive to think that the need for junior roles will be entirely eliminated in 5 years.
  - kypro 1y ago
    What would a junior developer be doing? Genuinely wondering what you would pay a junior developer to do today which couldn't do more cost effectively with AI? If you're talking about someone with a bit of technical knowledge who's cheaper than hiring a senior dev to prompt/manage AI agents then, yeah, I suspect there will be people doing this, but I don't think these are junior developers. In my opinion there would be no point in getting junior developer to do anything right now in the same way I'm not going to pay a rookie artist or web designer to do anything for me anymore because I'd get better results from AI. Obviously companies which are not productivity and cost optimised might not care/realise they can do this right away (there will always be the odd inefficient hire here and there), but my guess is that 99.9% of these hires make no economical sense and will be so few and far between that the role will effectively be eliminated in place of something else. And this happens often in tech. I used to know "webmasters" who just did HTML/CSS. The web still runs on HTML/CSS, but those jobs no longer exist and people who used to do that work are now doing other things. Again why the hell would I pay someone to write HTML/CSS when there are plenty WYSIWYGs and AI tools which could do a better job, cheaper and quicker?
    - ukuina 1y ago
      > What would a junior developer be doing? Genuinely wondering what you would pay a junior developer to do today which couldn't do more cost effectively with AI? Learn. We pay them to learn.
    - johnbellone 1y ago
      If we're being honest, by your statements alone I wouldn't consider you a senior developer in my organization. I pay them to learn my business, understand the requirements, and plan/build a solution within the scope of my company's means. The value, for me, is in the intersection of the institutional and technical knowledge of the areas of business. A senior developer needs to be able to mentor business/product/technical juniors about much more than the code they're working on at the moment. Please don't take it as me attacking you. I'd actually love to have this conversation with you on my podcast (link in description). I think it'd be a great one!

I agree the parent statement seemed a bit "incomplete", high level and hasty, however it's not inconceivable to me that AI will continue to help even the senior devs be way more productive - and even to double productivity (or more..) feels very plausible.

kypro 1y ago

If you're a senior dev and not already 20% more productive from AI you're doing something wrong. In 2-3 years 1 dev will easily be able to do what 2 devs could 5 years ago – e.g. you can half your senior dev team and operate at the same velocity as what you were previously able to. Given this and (other market factors) I don't see demand for senior devs being so high that a company would need to hire a junior dev because they are completely unable to hire a senior dev. The tech job market isn't likely to get that hot again in my opinion. So yes, given this broadly speaking junior devs are not needed. If someone is a junior dev and can't find a job they'll need to prove they can function at a senior level if they want to be employable going forward. But this is basically the market today anyway. But these are my predictions – you can disagree and I'm sure I will be out to some degree, but I'd put money on being mostly correct in these claims.

voidUpdate 1y ago
Well hopefully the amount of companies needing senior devs will double in 2-3 years then otherwise we wont be able to find a job since we'll have been automated away
looofooo0 1y ago
Jevons paradox here, if you increase the efficiency of anything, the demand goes up, not down. So any Dev-AI Cyborg will be in hot demand.
johnbellone 1y ago
Productivity enhancements are one thing, but the full elimination of junior development roles is completely different. The dynamics also change with the size and scale of the team and company (components, services, multiple customers, etc). The role will change and individuals will become more productive. These tools are impressive and moving in the right direction to your prediction. But, personally, I think it is naive to think that the need for junior roles will be entirely eliminated in 5 years.
- kypro 1y ago
  What would a junior developer be doing? Genuinely wondering what you would pay a junior developer to do today which couldn't do more cost effectively with AI? If you're talking about someone with a bit of technical knowledge who's cheaper than hiring a senior dev to prompt/manage AI agents then, yeah, I suspect there will be people doing this, but I don't think these are junior developers. In my opinion there would be no point in getting junior developer to do anything right now in the same way I'm not going to pay a rookie artist or web designer to do anything for me anymore because I'd get better results from AI. Obviously companies which are not productivity and cost optimised might not care/realise they can do this right away (there will always be the odd inefficient hire here and there), but my guess is that 99.9% of these hires make no economical sense and will be so few and far between that the role will effectively be eliminated in place of something else. And this happens often in tech. I used to know "webmasters" who just did HTML/CSS. The web still runs on HTML/CSS, but those jobs no longer exist and people who used to do that work are now doing other things. Again why the hell would I pay someone to write HTML/CSS when there are plenty WYSIWYGs and AI tools which could do a better job, cheaper and quicker?
  - ukuina 1y ago
    > What would a junior developer be doing? Genuinely wondering what you would pay a junior developer to do today which couldn't do more cost effectively with AI? Learn. We pay them to learn.
  - johnbellone 1y ago
    If we're being honest, by your statements alone I wouldn't consider you a senior developer in my organization. I pay them to learn my business, understand the requirements, and plan/build a solution within the scope of my company's means. The value, for me, is in the intersection of the institutional and technical knowledge of the areas of business. A senior developer needs to be able to mentor business/product/technical juniors about much more than the code they're working on at the moment. Please don't take it as me attacking you. I'd actually love to have this conversation with you on my podcast (link in description). I think it'd be a great one!