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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-better https://ti

by simonw 11mo ago

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-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 minutes evaluating options the AI surfaced. The time freed this way isn’t invested in another unprofitable feature, though, it’s invested in learning. [...] > If you’re an engineering manager thinking about hiring: The junior bet has gotten better. Not because juniors have changed, but because the genie, used well, accelerates learning.

lanfeust6 11mo ago
Search is easily the best feature of AI/LLMs.
- sublinear 11mo ago
  That's arguably all it ever was. Generating content using AI is just finding a point in latent space.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- alpha_squared 11mo ago
  I kind of agree here. The mental model that works for me is "search results passed through a rock tumbler". Search results without attribution and mixed-and-matched across reputable and non-reputable sources, with a bias toward whatever source type is more common.
- gosub100 11mo ago
  Which was trained on a pre-AI internet. What's going to happen in coming years when new tech comes out but perhaps isn't documented the same way anymore? It's not an unsolvable problem, but we could see unintended consequences like, say where you must pay the AI provider to ingest your data. Similar to buying poll space or AdSense or whatever they call it for search engines
  - simonw 11mo ago
    If you release a new piece of technology from 2025 onwards and don't invest a decent amount of effort into producing LLM-friendly documentation (with good examples) that a user can slurp into their coding agent you're doing your new technology a disservice.
    - nothrabannosir 11mo ago
      I thought this was always true? What’s new about documentation being important?
      - simonw 11mo ago
        If your technology has competition that's already in the training data, the only way to make it equally accessible to LLM users is to ensure there is concise, available documentation that can be fed directly into those LLMs. That's why "copy page" buttons are increasingly showing on manual pages eg. https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/get-started https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/get-started
      - gosub100 11mo ago
        If LLMs get more popular, fewer people will actually "browse the web" which could reduce the need for it to be published. At the least, fewer people will ask stack overflow questions for the LLM to learn from. So there could be an island of knowledge where LLMs excel at topics that had mass volume published before AI, and be much less useful for new tech developed after.
bgwalter 11mo ago
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 https://substack.com/@kentbeck What software projects is he actively working on?
- helsinkiandrew 11mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Beck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Beck
  - dlisboa 11mo ago
    To be fair, even if I appreciate Beck, some people do get too famous and start to inhabit a space that is far removed from the average company. Many of these guys tend to give out advice that is applicable to a handful of top earning companies but not the rest.
  - bgwalter 11mo ago
    So? His bio is literally one latest fad after the other. Now he joins the "AI" fad, what a surprise.
    - repler 11mo ago
      That is a very cynical take which completely ignores his contributions through the decades. In many cases he helped build the bandwagons you're implying he simply jumped onto.
      - exasperaited 11mo ago
        > In many cases he helped build the bandwagons you're implying he simply jumped onto. The fact that I cannot tell if you mean this satirically or not (though I want to believe you do!) is alarming to me.
  - School-Cotton 11mo ago
    Doesn't this back up the point? From his wiki it seems like he is mostly famous as a programming influencer, not as a programmer.
gnerd00 11mo ago
first response from me "let me mention how the real business world actually works" .. let's add a more nuanced slice to that however Since desktop computers became popular, there have been thousands of small to mid-size companies that could benefit from software systems.. A thousand thousand "consultants" marched off to their nearest accountant, retailer, small manufacturer or attorney office, to show off the new desktop software and claim ability to make new, custom solutions. We know now, this did not work out for a lot of small to mid-size business and/or consultants. Few could build a custom database application that is "good enough" .. not for lack of trying.. but pace of platforms, competitive features, stupid attention getting features.. all of that, outpaced small consultants .. the result is giant consolidation of basic Office software, not thousands of small systems custom built for small companies. What now, in 2025? "junior" devs do what? design and build? no. Cookie-cutter procedures at AWS lock-in services far, far outpace small and interesting designs of software.. Automation of AWS actions is going to be very much in demand.. is that a "junior dev" ? or what? This is a niche insight and not claiming to be the whole story.. but.. ps- insert your own story with "phones" instead of desktop software for another angle
- mlloyd 11mo ago
  One thing I'd point out is that there are only so many ways to write a document or build a spreadsheet. There are a ton of business processes that are custom enough to that org that they have to decide to go custom, change their process, or deal with the inefficiency of not having a technical solution that accomplishes the goal easily. Lotus Notes is an example of that custom software niche that took off and spawned a successful consulting ecosystem around it too.
  - dylan604 11mo ago
    > Lotus Notes is an example TIL Notes is still a thing. I had thought it was dead and gone some time ago.
- nateglims 11mo ago
  I'm a little confused by this analysis. Are you saying that all enterprise software has been replaced with MS word and AWS?
almosthere 11mo ago
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.
- turnsout 11mo ago
  Interesting how similar this is to the tradeoff of using AI coding agents
- fastball 11mo ago
  What makes them more capable than a senior engineer with three LLM agents?
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
lokar 11mo ago
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.
- bdangubic 11mo ago
  what is a larger issue? lacking domain knowledge? or lacking deeper understanding of years of shit in the codebase that seniors may have better understanding? where I work, there is no issue that it "too large" for a junior to take on, it is the only way that "junior" becomes "non-junior" - by doing, not by delegating to so-called seniors (I am one of them)
  - butwhyth0oo 11mo ago
    [dead]
  - dclowd9901 11mo ago
    "Larger issue" is overall technical direction and architecture, making decisions that don't paint you into a corner, establishing maintainability as a practice, designing work around an organization's structure and habit and so on. But these are the things people learn through experience and exposure, and I still think AI can help by at least condensing the numerous books out there around technology leadership into some useful summaries.
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
  - ekkeke 11mo ago
    You can't give a junior tasks that require experience and nuance that have been acquired over years of development. If you babysit them, then perhaps but then what is the point? By it's nature "nuance" is something hard to describe concretely but as someone who has mentored a fair few juniors most of them don't have it. AI generally doesn't have it either. Juniors need tasks at the boundary of their capability, but not far beyond to be able to progress. Simply allowing them to make a mess of a difficult project is not a good way to get there. There is such a thing as software engineering skill and it is not domain knowledge, nor knowledge of a specific codebase. It is good taste, an abstract ability to create/identify good solutions to a difficult problem.
ivape 11mo ago
Don’t confuse this with this persons ability to hide their instincts. He is redefining “senior” roles as junior, but words are meaningless in a world of numbers. The $$$ translation is that something that was worth $2 should now be worth $1. Because that makes the most business sense.
beAbU 11mo ago
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...
- chaos_emergent 11mo ago
  Isn't the struggle of sifting through a labyrinth of physical books and learning how and where to find the right answers part of the learning process? I would argue a machine that short-circuits the process of getting stuck in obtuse books is actually harmful long term...
  - sfpotter 11mo ago
    It may well be. Books have tons of useful expository material that you may not find in docs. A library has related books sitting in close proximity to one another. I don't know how many times I've gone to a library looking for one thing but ended up finding something much more interesting. Or to just go to the library with no end goal in mind...
    - usefulcat 11mo ago
      You could make much the same observation about online search results.
    - calepayson 11mo ago
      Speaking as a junior, I’m happy to do this on my own (and do!). Conversations like this are always well intentioned and friction truly is super useful to learning. But the ‘…’ in these conversations seems to always be implicating that we should inject friction. There’s no need. I have peers who aren’t interested in learning at all. Adding friction to their process doesn’t force them to learn. Meanwhile adding friction to the process of my buddies who are avidly researching just sucks. If your junior isn’t learning it likely has more to do with them just not being interested (which, hey, I get it) than some flaw in your process. Start asking prospective hires what their favorite books are. It’s the easiest way to find folks who care.
GeoAtreides 11mo ago
>but because the genie, used well, accelerates learning. This is "the kids will use the AI to learn and understand" level of cope no, the kids will copy and paste the solution then go back to their preferred dopamine dispenser
- CuriouslyC 11mo ago
  I've learned a lot of shit while getting AI to give me the answers, because I wanted to understand why it did what it did. It saves me a lot of time trying to fix things that would have never worked, so I can just spend time analyzing success. There might be value in learning from failure, but my guess is that there's more value in learning from success, and if the LLM doesn't need me to succeed my time is better spent pushing into territory where it fails so I can add real value.
  - skydhash 11mo ago
    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 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 more complex subject. That’s the benefit of having a good book and/or a good teacher to guide you to the path of mastering. Using a slot machine is more tortuous than that.
    - CuriouslyC 11mo ago
      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.
      - 11mo ago
SkyPuncher 11mo ago
*Some juniors have gotten better. I hate to be so negative, but one of the biggest problems junior engineers face is that they don't know how to make sense of or prioritize the gluttony of new-to-them information to make decisions. It's not helpful to have an AI reduce the search space because they still can't narrow down the last step effectively (or possibly independently). There are junior engineers who seem to inherently have this skill. They might still be poor in finding all necessary information, but when they do, they can make the final, critical decision. Now, with AI, they've largely eliminated the search problem so they can focus more on the decision making. The problem is it's extremely hard to identify who is what type. It's also something that senior level devs have generally figured out.
irishcoffee 11mo ago
The amount of copium in the replies to this is just amazing. It’s amazing.
sharemywin 11mo ago
I think the big win with AI is being able to work around jargon. Don't know what that word means ask AI. what the history on it no problem. don't understand a concepts explain this at a high school reading level.
ChuckMcM 11mo ago
And this is always my question: "... because the genie, used well, accelerates learning." Does it though? How are we defining "learning" here? The example I like to use is that a student who "learns" what a square root is, can calculate the square root of a number on a simple 4 function calculator (x, ÷, +, -) if iteratively. Whereas the student who "learns" that the √ key gives them the square root, is "stuck" when presented with a 4 function calculator. So did they 'learn' faster when the "genie" surfaced a key that gave them the answer? Or did they just become more dependent on the "genie" to do the work required of them?
- sailfast 11mo ago
  You still need to be curious. I learn a ton by asking questions of the LLMs when I see new things. “Explain this to me - I get X but why did you do Y?” It’s diamond age and a half - you just need to continue to be curious and perhaps slow your shipping speed sometimes to make sure you budget time for learning as well.
  - simonw 11mo ago
    I think that's the "used well" in "because the genie, used well, accelerates learning".
- pests 11mo ago
  Some random musings this reminded me of. I graduated HS in mid 2000s and didn't start using a calculator for math classes until basically a junior in college. I would do every calculation by hand, on paper. I benefited from a great math teacher early on that taught me how to properly lay out my calculations and solutions on paper. I've had tests I've turned in where I spent more paper on a single question than others did on the entire test. It really helped my understanding of numbers and how they interacted, and helped teachers/professors narrow down on my misunderstandings.
  - jacquesm 11mo ago
    Not only that: I suspect you already have an inkling of the range of the expected outcomes for the answer in your head just looking through the problem and any answers that fail that test will cause you to pause to re-check your work. This aspect is entirely missing when you use an oracle.
ares623 11mo ago
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.
imiric 11mo ago
I'm not swayed by appeals to authority, but this is a supremely bad take. "AI" tools are most useful in the hands of experienced developers, not juniors. It's seniors who have the knowledge and capability to review the generated output, and decide whether the code will cause more issues when it's merged, or if it's usable if they tweak and adapt it in certain ways. A junior developer has no such skills. Their only approach will be to run the code, test whether it fulfills the requirements, and, if they're thorough, try to understand and test it to the best of their abilities. Chances are that because they're pressured to deliver as quickly as possible to impress their colleagues and managers, they'll just accept whatever working solution the tool produces the first time. This makes "AI" in the hands of junior developers risky and counterproductive. Companies that allow this type of development will quickly grind to a halt under the weight of technical debt, and a minefield of bugs they won't know how to maneuver around. The unfortunate reality is that with "AI" there is no pathway for junior developers to become senior. Most people will gravitate towards using these tools as a crutch for quickly generating software, and not as a learning tool to improve their own skills. This should concern everyone vested in the future of this industry.
- versteegen 11mo ago
  > A junior developer has no such skills. Their only approach will be to run the code, test whether it fulfills the requirements, and, if they're thorough, try to understand and test it to the best of their abilities. This is also a supremely bad take... well, really it's mainly the way you worded it that's bad. Juniors have skills, natural aptitudes, as much intelligence on average as other programmers, and often even some experience but what they lack is work history. They sure as hell are capable of understanding code rather than just running it. Yes, of course experience is immensely useful, most especially at understanding how to achieve a maintainable and reliable codebase in the longterm, which is obviously of special importance, but long experience is not a hard requirement. You can reason about trade offs, learn from advice, learn quickly, etc.
  - imiric 11mo ago
    You're right, that was harshly worded. I meant to contrast it with the capability of making a quality assessment of the generated output, and understanding how and what to change, if necessary. This is something that only experts in any field are capable of. I didn't mean to imply that people lacking experience are incapable of attaining these skills, let alone that they're less intelligent. It's just that the field is positioned against them in a way that they might never reach this level. Some will, but it will be much harder for most. This wouldn't be an issue if these new tools were infallible, but we're far from that stage.
amrocha 11mo ago
I disagree. In my experience AI does most of the work and the juniors already poor skills atrophy. Then a senior engineer has to review AI slop and tell the junior to roll the AI dice again.
- snarf21 11mo ago
  Agreed, this is like AI doing your homework. A select few will use it to learn but most will copy/pasta, let it create their PR and slack the rest of the day. But at least they are "trying" so they won't get fired. And it requires strong senior engineers to walk them through the changes they are trying to check in and see why they chose them.
- Yodel0914 11mo ago
  I’m so sick of getting “but copilot said…” responses on PR comments.
- thinkingtoilet 11mo ago
  I've seen it go both ways. As usual, a good manager should be able to navigate this.
  - amrocha 11mo ago
    Ok, but not all managers are good and not all situations are navigable.
xp84 11mo ago
> the genie, used well, accelerates learning. Ehh... 'used well' is doing some very heavy lifting there. And the incentive structure at 90% of companies does not optimize for 'using it well.' The incentive is to ship quickly, meaning aim the AI-gun at the codebase for a few hours and grind out a "technically working" solution, with zero large-scale architecture thought and zero built-up knowledge of how the different parts of the application are intended to work together (because there was no "intention"). There will be tests, but they may not be sensible and may be very brittle. Anyway, deploying a bunch of fresh grads armed not with good mentorship but with the ability to generate thousands of LOC a day is a recipe for accelerating the collapse I usually see in startup codebases about 6-8 years old. This is the point where the list of exceptions to every supposed pattern is longer than the list of things that follow the patterns, and where each bug, when properly pursued, leads to a long chain of past bad decisions, each of which would take days of effort to properly unwind (and that unwinding will also have a branching effect on other things). Also, coincidentally, this is the point where an AI agent is the most useless, because they really don't expect all the bizarre quirks in the codebase. Am I saying AI is useless? No, it's great for prototyping and getting to PMF, and great in the hands of someone who can read its output with a critical eye, but I wouldn't combine it with inexperienced users who haven't had the opportunity to learn from all the many mistakes I've made over the years.
zahlman 11mo ago
Not to disagree with Kent Beck's insights on juniors using AI, but the effect of AI on his own writing is palpably negative. His older content is much more enjoyable to read. And so is his recent non-post "activity" on Substack. For example, compare a "note" preceding this article (https://substack.com/@kentbeck/note/c-188541464 https://substack.com/@kentbeck/note/c-188541464), on the same topic, to the actual content.
golly_ned 11mo ago
> Instead of spending three hours figuring out which API to use, they spend twenty minutes evaluating options the AI surfaced This really isn't the case from what I've seen. It's that they use Cursor or other code generation tools integrated into their development environment to generate code, and if it's functional and looks from a fuzzy distance like 'good' code (in the 'code in the small' sense), they send an oversized PR, and it's up to the reviewer to actually do the thinking.
- rustystump 11mo ago
  This. I have seen MRs with generated open cv lut mapping in them because a junior didnt understand that what they needed was a simple interpolation function. The crux is always that you dont know what u dont know. AI doesnt fix this.
- simonw 11mo ago
  That's bad and those juniors should be taught to do better or be "managed out of the company". Their job is to deliver code that they have proved to work. This inspired me to write a longer form version of this: Your job is to deliver code you have proven to work https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/18/code-we-have-proven-to-work/ https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/18/code-we-have-proven-to...
  - Synthetic7346 11mo ago
    The link is a 404 for me
    - simonw 11mo ago
      I changed it to https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/18/code-proven-to-work/ https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/18/code-proven-to-work/ It's now being discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46313297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46313297

by simonw 11mo ago

lanfeust6 11mo ago

Search is easily the best feature of AI/LLMs.

sublinear 11mo ago
That's arguably all it ever was. Generating content using AI is just finding a point in latent space.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
alpha_squared 11mo ago
I kind of agree here. The mental model that works for me is "search results passed through a rock tumbler". Search results without attribution and mixed-and-matched across reputable and non-reputable sources, with a bias toward whatever source type is more common.
gosub100 11mo ago
Which was trained on a pre-AI internet. What's going to happen in coming years when new tech comes out but perhaps isn't documented the same way anymore? It's not an unsolvable problem, but we could see unintended consequences like, say where you must pay the AI provider to ingest your data. Similar to buying poll space or AdSense or whatever they call it for search engines
- simonw 11mo ago
  If you release a new piece of technology from 2025 onwards and don't invest a decent amount of effort into producing LLM-friendly documentation (with good examples) that a user can slurp into their coding agent you're doing your new technology a disservice.
  - nothrabannosir 11mo ago
    I thought this was always true? What’s new about documentation being important?
    - simonw 11mo ago
      If your technology has competition that's already in the training data, the only way to make it equally accessible to LLM users is to ensure there is concise, available documentation that can be fed directly into those LLMs. That's why "copy page" buttons are increasingly showing on manual pages eg. https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/get-started https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/get-started
    - gosub100 11mo ago
      If LLMs get more popular, fewer people will actually "browse the web" which could reduce the need for it to be published. At the least, fewer people will ask stack overflow questions for the LLM to learn from. So there could be an island of knowledge where LLMs excel at topics that had mass volume published before AI, and be much less useful for new tech developed after.

bgwalter 11mo ago

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 https://substack.com/@kentbeck What software projects is he actively working on?

helsinkiandrew 11mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Beck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Beck
- dlisboa 11mo ago
  To be fair, even if I appreciate Beck, some people do get too famous and start to inhabit a space that is far removed from the average company. Many of these guys tend to give out advice that is applicable to a handful of top earning companies but not the rest.
- bgwalter 11mo ago
  So? His bio is literally one latest fad after the other. Now he joins the "AI" fad, what a surprise.
  - repler 11mo ago
    That is a very cynical take which completely ignores his contributions through the decades. In many cases he helped build the bandwagons you're implying he simply jumped onto.
    - exasperaited 11mo ago
      > In many cases he helped build the bandwagons you're implying he simply jumped onto. The fact that I cannot tell if you mean this satirically or not (though I want to believe you do!) is alarming to me.
- School-Cotton 11mo ago
  Doesn't this back up the point? From his wiki it seems like he is mostly famous as a programming influencer, not as a programmer.

gnerd00 11mo ago

first response from me "let me mention how the real business world actually works" .. let's add a more nuanced slice to that however Since desktop computers became popular, there have been thousands of small to mid-size companies that could benefit from software systems.. A thousand thousand "consultants" marched off to their nearest accountant, retailer, small manufacturer or attorney office, to show off the new desktop software and claim ability to make new, custom solutions. We know now, this did not work out for a lot of small to mid-size business and/or consultants. Few could build a custom database application that is "good enough" .. not for lack of trying.. but pace of platforms, competitive features, stupid attention getting features.. all of that, outpaced small consultants .. the result is giant consolidation of basic Office software, not thousands of small systems custom built for small companies. What now, in 2025? "junior" devs do what? design and build? no. Cookie-cutter procedures at AWS lock-in services far, far outpace small and interesting designs of software.. Automation of AWS actions is going to be very much in demand.. is that a "junior dev" ? or what? This is a niche insight and not claiming to be the whole story.. but.. ps- insert your own story with "phones" instead of desktop software for another angle

mlloyd 11mo ago
One thing I'd point out is that there are only so many ways to write a document or build a spreadsheet. There are a ton of business processes that are custom enough to that org that they have to decide to go custom, change their process, or deal with the inefficiency of not having a technical solution that accomplishes the goal easily. Lotus Notes is an example of that custom software niche that took off and spawned a successful consulting ecosystem around it too.
- dylan604 11mo ago
  > Lotus Notes is an example TIL Notes is still a thing. I had thought it was dead and gone some time ago.
nateglims 11mo ago
I'm a little confused by this analysis. Are you saying that all enterprise software has been replaced with MS word and AWS?

almosthere 11mo ago

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.

turnsout 11mo ago
Interesting how similar this is to the tradeoff of using AI coding agents
fastball 11mo ago
What makes them more capable than a senior engineer with three LLM agents?
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]

lokar 11mo ago

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.

bdangubic 11mo ago
what is a larger issue? lacking domain knowledge? or lacking deeper understanding of years of shit in the codebase that seniors may have better understanding? where I work, there is no issue that it "too large" for a junior to take on, it is the only way that "junior" becomes "non-junior" - by doing, not by delegating to so-called seniors (I am one of them)
- butwhyth0oo 11mo ago
  [dead]
- dclowd9901 11mo ago
  "Larger issue" is overall technical direction and architecture, making decisions that don't paint you into a corner, establishing maintainability as a practice, designing work around an organization's structure and habit and so on. But these are the things people learn through experience and exposure, and I still think AI can help by at least condensing the numerous books out there around technology leadership into some useful summaries.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
- ekkeke 11mo ago
  You can't give a junior tasks that require experience and nuance that have been acquired over years of development. If you babysit them, then perhaps but then what is the point? By it's nature "nuance" is something hard to describe concretely but as someone who has mentored a fair few juniors most of them don't have it. AI generally doesn't have it either. Juniors need tasks at the boundary of their capability, but not far beyond to be able to progress. Simply allowing them to make a mess of a difficult project is not a good way to get there. There is such a thing as software engineering skill and it is not domain knowledge, nor knowledge of a specific codebase. It is good taste, an abstract ability to create/identify good solutions to a difficult problem.

ivape 11mo ago

Don’t confuse this with this persons ability to hide their instincts. He is redefining “senior” roles as junior, but words are meaningless in a world of numbers. The $$$ translation is that something that was worth $2 should now be worth $1. Because that makes the most business sense.

beAbU 11mo ago

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...

chaos_emergent 11mo ago
Isn't the struggle of sifting through a labyrinth of physical books and learning how and where to find the right answers part of the learning process? I would argue a machine that short-circuits the process of getting stuck in obtuse books is actually harmful long term...
- sfpotter 11mo ago
  It may well be. Books have tons of useful expository material that you may not find in docs. A library has related books sitting in close proximity to one another. I don't know how many times I've gone to a library looking for one thing but ended up finding something much more interesting. Or to just go to the library with no end goal in mind...
  - usefulcat 11mo ago
    You could make much the same observation about online search results.
  - calepayson 11mo ago
    Speaking as a junior, I’m happy to do this on my own (and do!). Conversations like this are always well intentioned and friction truly is super useful to learning. But the ‘…’ in these conversations seems to always be implicating that we should inject friction. There’s no need. I have peers who aren’t interested in learning at all. Adding friction to their process doesn’t force them to learn. Meanwhile adding friction to the process of my buddies who are avidly researching just sucks. If your junior isn’t learning it likely has more to do with them just not being interested (which, hey, I get it) than some flaw in your process. Start asking prospective hires what their favorite books are. It’s the easiest way to find folks who care.

GeoAtreides 11mo ago

>but because the genie, used well, accelerates learning. This is "the kids will use the AI to learn and understand" level of cope no, the kids will copy and paste the solution then go back to their preferred dopamine dispenser

CuriouslyC 11mo ago
I've learned a lot of shit while getting AI to give me the answers, because I wanted to understand why it did what it did. It saves me a lot of time trying to fix things that would have never worked, so I can just spend time analyzing success. There might be value in learning from failure, but my guess is that there's more value in learning from success, and if the LLM doesn't need me to succeed my time is better spent pushing into territory where it fails so I can add real value.
- skydhash 11mo ago
  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 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 more complex subject. That’s the benefit of having a good book and/or a good teacher to guide you to the path of mastering. Using a slot machine is more tortuous than that.
  - CuriouslyC 11mo ago
    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.
    - 11mo ago

SkyPuncher 11mo ago

*Some juniors have gotten better. I hate to be so negative, but one of the biggest problems junior engineers face is that they don't know how to make sense of or prioritize the gluttony of new-to-them information to make decisions. It's not helpful to have an AI reduce the search space because they still can't narrow down the last step effectively (or possibly independently). There are junior engineers who seem to inherently have this skill. They might still be poor in finding all necessary information, but when they do, they can make the final, critical decision. Now, with AI, they've largely eliminated the search problem so they can focus more on the decision making. The problem is it's extremely hard to identify who is what type. It's also something that senior level devs have generally figured out.

irishcoffee 11mo ago

The amount of copium in the replies to this is just amazing. It’s amazing.

sharemywin 11mo ago

I think the big win with AI is being able to work around jargon. Don't know what that word means ask AI. what the history on it no problem. don't understand a concepts explain this at a high school reading level.

ChuckMcM 11mo ago

And this is always my question: "... because the genie, used well, accelerates learning." Does it though? How are we defining "learning" here? The example I like to use is that a student who "learns" what a square root is, can calculate the square root of a number on a simple 4 function calculator (x, ÷, +, -) if iteratively. Whereas the student who "learns" that the √ key gives them the square root, is "stuck" when presented with a 4 function calculator. So did they 'learn' faster when the "genie" surfaced a key that gave them the answer? Or did they just become more dependent on the "genie" to do the work required of them?

sailfast 11mo ago
You still need to be curious. I learn a ton by asking questions of the LLMs when I see new things. “Explain this to me - I get X but why did you do Y?” It’s diamond age and a half - you just need to continue to be curious and perhaps slow your shipping speed sometimes to make sure you budget time for learning as well.
- simonw 11mo ago
  I think that's the "used well" in "because the genie, used well, accelerates learning".
pests 11mo ago
Some random musings this reminded me of. I graduated HS in mid 2000s and didn't start using a calculator for math classes until basically a junior in college. I would do every calculation by hand, on paper. I benefited from a great math teacher early on that taught me how to properly lay out my calculations and solutions on paper. I've had tests I've turned in where I spent more paper on a single question than others did on the entire test. It really helped my understanding of numbers and how they interacted, and helped teachers/professors narrow down on my misunderstandings.
- jacquesm 11mo ago
  Not only that: I suspect you already have an inkling of the range of the expected outcomes for the answer in your head just looking through the problem and any answers that fail that test will cause you to pause to re-check your work. This aspect is entirely missing when you use an oracle.

ares623 11mo ago

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.

imiric 11mo ago

I'm not swayed by appeals to authority, but this is a supremely bad take. "AI" tools are most useful in the hands of experienced developers, not juniors. It's seniors who have the knowledge and capability to review the generated output, and decide whether the code will cause more issues when it's merged, or if it's usable if they tweak and adapt it in certain ways. A junior developer has no such skills. Their only approach will be to run the code, test whether it fulfills the requirements, and, if they're thorough, try to understand and test it to the best of their abilities. Chances are that because they're pressured to deliver as quickly as possible to impress their colleagues and managers, they'll just accept whatever working solution the tool produces the first time. This makes "AI" in the hands of junior developers risky and counterproductive. Companies that allow this type of development will quickly grind to a halt under the weight of technical debt, and a minefield of bugs they won't know how to maneuver around. The unfortunate reality is that with "AI" there is no pathway for junior developers to become senior. Most people will gravitate towards using these tools as a crutch for quickly generating software, and not as a learning tool to improve their own skills. This should concern everyone vested in the future of this industry.

versteegen 11mo ago
> A junior developer has no such skills. Their only approach will be to run the code, test whether it fulfills the requirements, and, if they're thorough, try to understand and test it to the best of their abilities. This is also a supremely bad take... well, really it's mainly the way you worded it that's bad. Juniors have skills, natural aptitudes, as much intelligence on average as other programmers, and often even some experience but what they lack is work history. They sure as hell are capable of understanding code rather than just running it. Yes, of course experience is immensely useful, most especially at understanding how to achieve a maintainable and reliable codebase in the longterm, which is obviously of special importance, but long experience is not a hard requirement. You can reason about trade offs, learn from advice, learn quickly, etc.
- imiric 11mo ago
  You're right, that was harshly worded. I meant to contrast it with the capability of making a quality assessment of the generated output, and understanding how and what to change, if necessary. This is something that only experts in any field are capable of. I didn't mean to imply that people lacking experience are incapable of attaining these skills, let alone that they're less intelligent. It's just that the field is positioned against them in a way that they might never reach this level. Some will, but it will be much harder for most. This wouldn't be an issue if these new tools were infallible, but we're far from that stage.

amrocha 11mo ago

I disagree. In my experience AI does most of the work and the juniors already poor skills atrophy. Then a senior engineer has to review AI slop and tell the junior to roll the AI dice again.

snarf21 11mo ago
Agreed, this is like AI doing your homework. A select few will use it to learn but most will copy/pasta, let it create their PR and slack the rest of the day. But at least they are "trying" so they won't get fired. And it requires strong senior engineers to walk them through the changes they are trying to check in and see why they chose them.
Yodel0914 11mo ago
I’m so sick of getting “but copilot said…” responses on PR comments.
thinkingtoilet 11mo ago
I've seen it go both ways. As usual, a good manager should be able to navigate this.
- amrocha 11mo ago
  Ok, but not all managers are good and not all situations are navigable.

xp84 11mo ago

> the genie, used well, accelerates learning. Ehh... 'used well' is doing some very heavy lifting there. And the incentive structure at 90% of companies does not optimize for 'using it well.' The incentive is to ship quickly, meaning aim the AI-gun at the codebase for a few hours and grind out a "technically working" solution, with zero large-scale architecture thought and zero built-up knowledge of how the different parts of the application are intended to work together (because there was no "intention"). There will be tests, but they may not be sensible and may be very brittle. Anyway, deploying a bunch of fresh grads armed not with good mentorship but with the ability to generate thousands of LOC a day is a recipe for accelerating the collapse I usually see in startup codebases about 6-8 years old. This is the point where the list of exceptions to every supposed pattern is longer than the list of things that follow the patterns, and where each bug, when properly pursued, leads to a long chain of past bad decisions, each of which would take days of effort to properly unwind (and that unwinding will also have a branching effect on other things). Also, coincidentally, this is the point where an AI agent is the most useless, because they really don't expect all the bizarre quirks in the codebase. Am I saying AI is useless? No, it's great for prototyping and getting to PMF, and great in the hands of someone who can read its output with a critical eye, but I wouldn't combine it with inexperienced users who haven't had the opportunity to learn from all the many mistakes I've made over the years.

zahlman 11mo ago

Not to disagree with Kent Beck's insights on juniors using AI, but the effect of AI on his own writing is palpably negative. His older content is much more enjoyable to read. And so is his recent non-post "activity" on Substack. For example, compare a "note" preceding this article (https://substack.com/@kentbeck/note/c-188541464 https://substack.com/@kentbeck/note/c-188541464), on the same topic, to the actual content.

golly_ned 11mo ago

> Instead of spending three hours figuring out which API to use, they spend twenty minutes evaluating options the AI surfaced This really isn't the case from what I've seen. It's that they use Cursor or other code generation tools integrated into their development environment to generate code, and if it's functional and looks from a fuzzy distance like 'good' code (in the 'code in the small' sense), they send an oversized PR, and it's up to the reviewer to actually do the thinking.

rustystump 11mo ago
This. I have seen MRs with generated open cv lut mapping in them because a junior didnt understand that what they needed was a simple interpolation function. The crux is always that you dont know what u dont know. AI doesnt fix this.
simonw 11mo ago
That's bad and those juniors should be taught to do better or be "managed out of the company". Their job is to deliver code that they have proved to work. This inspired me to write a longer form version of this: Your job is to deliver code you have proven to work https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/18/code-we-have-proven-to-work/ https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/18/code-we-have-proven-to...
- Synthetic7346 11mo ago
  The link is a 404 for me
  - simonw 11mo ago
    I changed it to https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/18/code-proven-to-work/ https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/18/code-proven-to-work/ It's now being discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46313297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46313297