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> Junior devs have always been useless > The same ethos makes sense with AI, it's just that every company is trying to avoid paying that training tax. Last ti
by thisisit 7mo ago
> Junior devs have always been useless
> The same ethos makes sense with AI, it's just that every company is trying to avoid paying that training tax.
Last time when a junior dev was added to my team I had a similar thought. But then talking with management I was informed that things went beyond just training.
The company had a social responsibility pledge and understanding with the local educational institutions. They had to pledge to be part of the internship and hiring activities every year. The company could not chose to be fair weather friends and try to recruit people only when they saw fit.
The other aspect was cost. A team made of only senior engineers was costly.
The last aspect was leveling up. Unless the company has lots of levels the team might end up lots of engineers at the same level. And with the inverted funnel nature of promotions it meant some engineers might end up waiting years for the promotion.
So, it was better to have teams with some junior, intermediate and experienced engineers. That way costs and promotion flows were controlled.
Now with AI the impact might go beyond junior devs. I see even the intermediate devs being impacted. It is more likely that companies think they can replace say 1 junior + 1 intermediate with 1 junior dev with AI. Or something along those lines.
- raw_anon_1111 7mo agoThen don’t base comp on promotions - problem solved.
- collingreen 7mo agoThis kind of flippant approach is equally valid as "just use ai", "let other companies train the juniors", and "don't give promotions just hire new juniors + ai". All of these have obvious problems from their overly myopic viewpoint.
- raw_anon_1111 7mo agoHow is that flippant? I went from an “architect” over the entire cloud developmrnt strategy at a 60 person startup making $160K in 2020 to working at AWS ProServe making $220K (cash + signing bonus + RSUs) as an L5 (mid level - no longer there). Do you think I cared about my title? I said just the opposite - hire fewer seniors + AI and don’t hird juniors. I’m now a staff level employee again at a 3rd party consulting company working with small and medium businesses (my preference) after taking a detour in BigTech from architectural roles at smaller companies. My quarterly strategic goals were a combination of what the CxO’s/directors defined and what I defined was in the best interest of the company. None of those goals had anything to do with larger societal issues.
- thisisit 7mo agoThat might work for you - sure. But different people have different ambitions. Some might not care for comp and want to become a people manager. Decent management is aware of this "different ambition" dynamic and try to mitigate this. Also, this doesn't solve the problem of cost. Too many engineers without their comp based on promotions will still mean costly teams. That's why a balance of junior and senior is needed.
- raw_anon_1111 7mo agoHow is bringing a couple off juniors on board instead of mid level developers who csn turn well defined tasks into cud’s going to help?