A few points here. - Junior developers become senior relatively quick. Most senior developers get their senior title just a few short years into their careers.

A few points here. - Junior developers become senior relatively quick. Most senior developers get their senior title just a few short years into their careers. Typically in their late twenties or early thirties. Not judging but that seems to have been the state of affairs in software engineering for quite some time. I was a "senior" by age 30. I've learned a lot since then ;-). - AI is increasing the demand for software because software just got cheaper to make so people want more, not less. The best software still gets made by senior people (with or without AI). That's why seniors are in demand. That should have an effect on their compensation. Which would be very welcome given the last few years of freelance rates dropping. - Software creation is a team sport. Having a team mainly consisting of old and grumpy middle aged software engineers isn't necessarily the best thing (been there done that). It might be better to have a mix of young old and experienced/inexperienced. There's plenty of room for juniors in the industry. - Juniors come in many forms. Some people have a lot to learn. Some people create valuable startups straight out of college. - Software companies that are not constantly investing in their staff will have to deal with replacing their older staff as they move on, retire, or disappear for other reasons. A constant in flow of juniors that you can then train up and turn into valuable team members still works just like it always has. - Juniors are a lot cheaper to hire than seniors. If there's a shortage of seniors, hire juniors instead and then train them up. That's what many companies were doing anyway. If anything a lot of silicon valley companies seem to have been preferring to hire juniors almost exclusively for quite some time. - As long as the amount of programmers keeps on growing (and there are no signs of that slowing down that I know of), there will be more juniors than seniors. I'm not sure if the amount still doubles every five years but that seems to have been true for a long time.