5 ms·

It's crazy that so often I see articles, here on HN and elsewhere, where some pundit claims that there is no AI job crisis, AI isn't replacing any jobs, that la

It's crazy that so often I see articles, here on HN and elsewhere, where some pundit claims that there is no AI job crisis, AI isn't replacing any jobs, that layoffs are actually due to post-pandemic ZIRP overhiring, etc. But then people who work in actual tech companies come in and explicitly say they are not hiring any juniors anymore specifically because AI is good enough to do most of what juniors do, and that senior engineers can now write 3x as much code, etc. There seems to be a desire for a narrative that AI really just can't replace productive work, and that it's all a mirage. However it seems just like common sense that if an AI can do junior-engineer-level coding work, that a company has less reason to hire a junior engineer.

tboyd47 4mo ago
They probably weren't hiring any junior coders to begin with.
nawgz 4mo ago
> However it seems just like common sense that if an AI can do junior-engineer-level coding work, that a company has less reason to hire a junior engineer. I mean, if we want to not talk about economics that’s fine, but can the AI actually do junior work at the same price? What if we don’t look only at quarterly reports, and instead include the value of having people knowing about the business having to explain it to others, who then learn it and can improve it over time? I think it’s clear the AI is strong, there’s no doubt about that, but that’s not the whole picture.
- mfuzzey 4mo ago
  >I mean, if we want to not talk about economics that’s fine, but can the AI actually do junior work at the same price? Even if we assume it can then not hiring Juniors still doesn't make sense - where will seniors come from in the future?
  - thewebguyd 4mo ago
    That's a problem for the next CEO of course
  - HDThoreaun 4mo ago
    This is a collective action problem. Its too easy to claim the answer is "we'll hire our competitors juniors when they become seniors" and then every company wants to do that and not train their own juniors. Soon no one is willing to train juniors because theyll just leave for the companies that dont train juniors.
- thewebguyd 4mo ago
  > include the value of having people knowing about the business having to explain it to others, who then learn it and can improve it over time? It's always been difficult to put a number on that value, which is the problem for the MBAs running the show. There's no number on the P&L assigned to tribal knowledge, and improvements that can be made by those with that knowledge and experience within the business. It's a mistake that businesses keep repeating, over and over again, yet never actually learning the lesson. And now the industry is going to repeat it again, until there's enough pain that they realize that lost value and start rehiring again.
- atleastoptimal 4mo ago
  The point is not whether it’s a mistake to not hire juniors, but whether it’s actually factoring into the hiring/layoff decisions at tech companies. Many claims are being made that no companies are actually changing hiring/layoff decisions on account of AI, and are using it as a distraction to avoid admitting their mistakes over hiring. That may be true, but many managers and execs actually do seem to consider AI a sufficient replacement for much of their engineering team, and are stalling hiring/prompting layoffs because of it.
- sdellis 4mo ago
  It's not so much a question of whether AI is strong or not. It's a question of whether the tradeoffs (theft of intellectual property, coal burning, lack of transparency, stealing water, rising energy prices, global surveillance, etc.) are worth the outcomes. It's not even a serious question. If AI was truly strong, we would be seeing signs in the job market. And we would certainly be seeing a lot more subscriptions and demand for these services. For most people, AI does not improve their lives. For a lot of them, especially younger people, it makes their lives much harder and sadder.
  - Windchaser 4mo ago
    > If AI was truly strong, we would be seeing signs in the job market. Recalling past business cycles, the job market can look "strong" with low unemployment, even while a lot of creative destruction is going on. Look at the 2004-2009 cycle, where the economy looked strong until some time in 2008 even though a lot of money was being wasted on bad projects. It's only when the tide goes out that you see who's swimming without trunks. So unemployment doesn't typically rise until the recession part of the cycle.
gruez 4mo ago
>But then people who work in actual tech companies come in and explicitly say they are not hiring any juniors anymore specifically because AI is good enough to do most of what juniors do, and that senior engineers can now write 3x as much code, etc. Yup, that's reflected in the data as well, no need to invoke "vibes" or whatever. https://www.economist.com/content-assets/images/20260516_EPC411.png https://www.economist.com/content-assets/images/20260516_EPC... https://www.economist.com/content-assets/images/20260516_EPC296.png https://www.economist.com/content-assets/images/20260516_EPC... The likely explanation is that there's job losses happening in some sectors, but it's made up for in other sectors.
scottious 4mo ago
the job description of a junior engineer can change. junior engineers can use AI to make themselves more productive too
- leptons 4mo ago
  "Productive junior" is vastly different than a productive software developer with a couple decades of experience. What they produce will differ in quality significantly, AI or no AI.
- icedchai 4mo ago
  In my experience, AI raises the ceiling but also lowers the floor. It can make experienced people more productive: they can vet the output. The juniors? Not so much. I've worked with guys who write prompts that are literally "fix it." The result is about as good as you expect.
bwestergard 4mo ago
The decline in junior hiring began before ChatGPT had wide adoption, so AI is not a likely cause. https://www.employamerica.org/labor-market-analysis/dont-blame-ai-for-the-rise-in-recent-graduate-unemployment/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email https://www.employamerica.org/labor-market-analysis/dont-bla... The New York Fed has also released some research suggesting remote work has been a major factor differentially affecting early career workers. https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/06/remote-work-leaves-younger-workers-sidelined/ https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/06/remote... "But then people who work in actual tech companies come in and explicitly say they are not hiring any juniors anymore specifically because AI is good enough to do most of what juniors do, and that senior engineers can now write 3x as much code, etc." If you want an anecdote: the media company I work for just started hiring interns and juniors in software career tracks again after a lengthy hiatus.
- txru 4mo ago
  I have a suspicion that Twitter laying off so much of the software staff was very influential for people with hiring abilities. The company didn't crash, and they (relatively slowly) began shipping new features again. I think that coincided with the pandemic-era overhiring, and we've been working against that combo ever since. Every now and then, I actively try to make an LLM replace my tasks, and fully do greenfield projects I would accept- I don't see it. It's very good, no doubt. But I have or have been given the project parameters, and just like with a junior, failures in communication inevitably lead to breakdowns in execution.
  - fdsdfsdfzxczxc 4mo ago
    It does your job, but not completely autonomously so you don't see it? It requires a lot of guidance, luckily, I mean thank god otherwise we would be goners. The job itself hasn't become easier, but it did change. If you come across failures you update the spec, the guard rails, whatever you use to guide it. It's not a "it produced bad code and now it's forever useless" type of situation.
    - 4mo ago
OptionOfT 4mo ago
> There seems to be a desire for a narrative that AI really just can't replace productive work, and that it's all a mirage. Yes, and juniors aren't known for their productive work in the beginning. That's not their purpose. Their purpose is to do the mundane work, because it is important for them to become less junior and more senior. That is robbed of them. Which in 5-10 years means the need for senior developers is gonna shoot through the roof.
- atleastoptimal 4mo ago
  people keep saying that assuming that in 5-10 years AI won’t be as good as senior engineers
  - sublinear 4mo ago
    What makes you think that? AI isn't as good as any human in any field. Why would it be capable of replacing anyone at all in 10 years?
    - gruez 4mo ago
      >What makes you think that? AI isn't as good as any human in any field. Not even chess-playing? More applicable to jobs though, they're arguably better than some juniors.
    - _aavaa_ 4mo ago
      What are you talking about? AI is currently better at the things it can do than the average random person on the streets.
    - t-3 4mo ago
      5 years ago AI was a joke, today it is a major industry tool.
  - JeremyNT 4mo ago
    What hubris on HN, to downvote this very reasonable comment. A year ago I had no use for any LLM-driven tools, and today I can do my entire job without writing a single line of code. If that happened in a year, what can we expect in 5? I have no idea what my job might even look like by then.
thrownaway561 4mo ago
well said. my wife's company has been having layoffs particularly from the overhiring during COVID. They went from 10 billion down to 1 billion thus far.
Qhemlomo 4mo ago
And now it becomes so good, that you want to have it. Which means companies have to deal with the budget increase which they will recupe. How? By making a 5 person team a 4 person team + AI. If i think about my co-workers (not excluding myself) from last 15 years, there was always someone you would accept just because it was better than not having that one person. If i can now replace them with more tokens/better models, man i wouldn't hesitate (of course i know what this means on a person to person level :/)
themafia 4mo ago
> actual tech companies Are you talking the big 10? Or "tech companies" in general? > AI really just can't replace productive work Okay. Show me the productivity gains. Those are measurable. Why is the "AI is ready" crowd never prepared to show this? > that if an AI can do junior-engineer-level coding work Then you have no competitive edge and most of your output probably cannot be copyrighted.
emp17344 4mo ago
If you’re so confident, show us some data to debunk the article. You have a weird chip on shoulder, but no economic evidence to justify it.
- MoonWalk 4mo ago
  I think that's coming at it backward. The article lacks data. Nobody should be expected to run around writing the article that's not there. As it stands, it's unsubstantiated junk.
  - emp17344 4mo ago
    What do you mean the article lacks data? Did you miss the BLS report?
    - MoonWalk 4mo ago
      There's no report. This "article" was three sentences and a chart that doesn't even break down crude occupational categories, let alone anything more specific. Essentially useless.
- stevenhuang 4mo ago
  The one with a weird chip on their shoulder is not the parent I can tell you that much.
epolanski 4mo ago
Not just juniors, honestly the hiring slump that started in 2022 keeps going on with no signs of reversion.
TomasBM 4mo ago
Can confirm. From my experience, since December 2025, state-of-the-art models can replace a lot of need for junior, medior or senior developers. This meant that, in my example and given the same scope, one junior person with AI could easily handle multiple projects in 2026 that would require 2 or more medior people as recently as 2025. The only reasons for involving multiple people were time, learning opportunity, or increased scope - not skill. If we paused AI progress today, and ignored the option of adding agents recursively, the current state of things still provides several alternatives to any honest & informed manager: - Altruistic or optimistic: Keep all current jobs, and move the scope until there's a need and/or funds to hire more devs; - Pragmatic or neutral: Keep the current jobs, but not hire anyone else as long as the scope is balanced against time (our current situation); - Cold or pessimistic: Lay off anyone who doesn't fit the leanest model at current (or acceptably lower/higher) scope. I don't know whether this translates into a "job's crisis", and I can only hope it won't. But hope is not a career strategy, scope is not inexhaustible, and the political, economic and social pressures are quite strong even if you removed AI.

tboyd47 4mo ago

They probably weren't hiring any junior coders to begin with.

nawgz 4mo ago

> However it seems just like common sense that if an AI can do junior-engineer-level coding work, that a company has less reason to hire a junior engineer. I mean, if we want to not talk about economics that’s fine, but can the AI actually do junior work at the same price? What if we don’t look only at quarterly reports, and instead include the value of having people knowing about the business having to explain it to others, who then learn it and can improve it over time? I think it’s clear the AI is strong, there’s no doubt about that, but that’s not the whole picture.

mfuzzey 4mo ago
>I mean, if we want to not talk about economics that’s fine, but can the AI actually do junior work at the same price? Even if we assume it can then not hiring Juniors still doesn't make sense - where will seniors come from in the future?
- thewebguyd 4mo ago
  That's a problem for the next CEO of course
- HDThoreaun 4mo ago
  This is a collective action problem. Its too easy to claim the answer is "we'll hire our competitors juniors when they become seniors" and then every company wants to do that and not train their own juniors. Soon no one is willing to train juniors because theyll just leave for the companies that dont train juniors.
thewebguyd 4mo ago
> include the value of having people knowing about the business having to explain it to others, who then learn it and can improve it over time? It's always been difficult to put a number on that value, which is the problem for the MBAs running the show. There's no number on the P&L assigned to tribal knowledge, and improvements that can be made by those with that knowledge and experience within the business. It's a mistake that businesses keep repeating, over and over again, yet never actually learning the lesson. And now the industry is going to repeat it again, until there's enough pain that they realize that lost value and start rehiring again.
atleastoptimal 4mo ago
The point is not whether it’s a mistake to not hire juniors, but whether it’s actually factoring into the hiring/layoff decisions at tech companies. Many claims are being made that no companies are actually changing hiring/layoff decisions on account of AI, and are using it as a distraction to avoid admitting their mistakes over hiring. That may be true, but many managers and execs actually do seem to consider AI a sufficient replacement for much of their engineering team, and are stalling hiring/prompting layoffs because of it.
sdellis 4mo ago
It's not so much a question of whether AI is strong or not. It's a question of whether the tradeoffs (theft of intellectual property, coal burning, lack of transparency, stealing water, rising energy prices, global surveillance, etc.) are worth the outcomes. It's not even a serious question. If AI was truly strong, we would be seeing signs in the job market. And we would certainly be seeing a lot more subscriptions and demand for these services. For most people, AI does not improve their lives. For a lot of them, especially younger people, it makes their lives much harder and sadder.
- Windchaser 4mo ago
  > If AI was truly strong, we would be seeing signs in the job market. Recalling past business cycles, the job market can look "strong" with low unemployment, even while a lot of creative destruction is going on. Look at the 2004-2009 cycle, where the economy looked strong until some time in 2008 even though a lot of money was being wasted on bad projects. It's only when the tide goes out that you see who's swimming without trunks. So unemployment doesn't typically rise until the recession part of the cycle.

gruez 4mo ago

>But then people who work in actual tech companies come in and explicitly say they are not hiring any juniors anymore specifically because AI is good enough to do most of what juniors do, and that senior engineers can now write 3x as much code, etc. Yup, that's reflected in the data as well, no need to invoke "vibes" or whatever. https://www.economist.com/content-assets/images/20260516_EPC411.png https://www.economist.com/content-assets/images/20260516_EPC... https://www.economist.com/content-assets/images/20260516_EPC296.png https://www.economist.com/content-assets/images/20260516_EPC... The likely explanation is that there's job losses happening in some sectors, but it's made up for in other sectors.

scottious 4mo ago

the job description of a junior engineer can change. junior engineers can use AI to make themselves more productive too

leptons 4mo ago
"Productive junior" is vastly different than a productive software developer with a couple decades of experience. What they produce will differ in quality significantly, AI or no AI.
icedchai 4mo ago
In my experience, AI raises the ceiling but also lowers the floor. It can make experienced people more productive: they can vet the output. The juniors? Not so much. I've worked with guys who write prompts that are literally "fix it." The result is about as good as you expect.

bwestergard 4mo ago

The decline in junior hiring began before ChatGPT had wide adoption, so AI is not a likely cause. https://www.employamerica.org/labor-market-analysis/dont-blame-ai-for-the-rise-in-recent-graduate-unemployment/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email https://www.employamerica.org/labor-market-analysis/dont-bla... The New York Fed has also released some research suggesting remote work has been a major factor differentially affecting early career workers. https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/06/remote-work-leaves-younger-workers-sidelined/ https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/06/remote... "But then people who work in actual tech companies come in and explicitly say they are not hiring any juniors anymore specifically because AI is good enough to do most of what juniors do, and that senior engineers can now write 3x as much code, etc." If you want an anecdote: the media company I work for just started hiring interns and juniors in software career tracks again after a lengthy hiatus.

txru 4mo ago
I have a suspicion that Twitter laying off so much of the software staff was very influential for people with hiring abilities. The company didn't crash, and they (relatively slowly) began shipping new features again. I think that coincided with the pandemic-era overhiring, and we've been working against that combo ever since. Every now and then, I actively try to make an LLM replace my tasks, and fully do greenfield projects I would accept- I don't see it. It's very good, no doubt. But I have or have been given the project parameters, and just like with a junior, failures in communication inevitably lead to breakdowns in execution.
- fdsdfsdfzxczxc 4mo ago
  It does your job, but not completely autonomously so you don't see it? It requires a lot of guidance, luckily, I mean thank god otherwise we would be goners. The job itself hasn't become easier, but it did change. If you come across failures you update the spec, the guard rails, whatever you use to guide it. It's not a "it produced bad code and now it's forever useless" type of situation.
  - 4mo ago

OptionOfT 4mo ago

> There seems to be a desire for a narrative that AI really just can't replace productive work, and that it's all a mirage. Yes, and juniors aren't known for their productive work in the beginning. That's not their purpose. Their purpose is to do the mundane work, because it is important for them to become less junior and more senior. That is robbed of them. Which in 5-10 years means the need for senior developers is gonna shoot through the roof.

atleastoptimal 4mo ago
people keep saying that assuming that in 5-10 years AI won’t be as good as senior engineers
- sublinear 4mo ago
  What makes you think that? AI isn't as good as any human in any field. Why would it be capable of replacing anyone at all in 10 years?
  - gruez 4mo ago
    >What makes you think that? AI isn't as good as any human in any field. Not even chess-playing? More applicable to jobs though, they're arguably better than some juniors.
  - _aavaa_ 4mo ago
    What are you talking about? AI is currently better at the things it can do than the average random person on the streets.
  - t-3 4mo ago
    5 years ago AI was a joke, today it is a major industry tool.
- JeremyNT 4mo ago
  What hubris on HN, to downvote this very reasonable comment. A year ago I had no use for any LLM-driven tools, and today I can do my entire job without writing a single line of code. If that happened in a year, what can we expect in 5? I have no idea what my job might even look like by then.

thrownaway561 4mo ago

well said. my wife's company has been having layoffs particularly from the overhiring during COVID. They went from 10 billion down to 1 billion thus far.

Qhemlomo 4mo ago

And now it becomes so good, that you want to have it. Which means companies have to deal with the budget increase which they will recupe. How? By making a 5 person team a 4 person team + AI. If i think about my co-workers (not excluding myself) from last 15 years, there was always someone you would accept just because it was better than not having that one person. If i can now replace them with more tokens/better models, man i wouldn't hesitate (of course i know what this means on a person to person level :/)

themafia 4mo ago

> actual tech companies Are you talking the big 10? Or "tech companies" in general? > AI really just can't replace productive work Okay. Show me the productivity gains. Those are measurable. Why is the "AI is ready" crowd never prepared to show this? > that if an AI can do junior-engineer-level coding work Then you have no competitive edge and most of your output probably cannot be copyrighted.

emp17344 4mo ago

If you’re so confident, show us some data to debunk the article. You have a weird chip on shoulder, but no economic evidence to justify it.

MoonWalk 4mo ago
I think that's coming at it backward. The article lacks data. Nobody should be expected to run around writing the article that's not there. As it stands, it's unsubstantiated junk.
- emp17344 4mo ago
  What do you mean the article lacks data? Did you miss the BLS report?
  - MoonWalk 4mo ago
    There's no report. This "article" was three sentences and a chart that doesn't even break down crude occupational categories, let alone anything more specific. Essentially useless.
stevenhuang 4mo ago
The one with a weird chip on their shoulder is not the parent I can tell you that much.

epolanski 4mo ago

Not just juniors, honestly the hiring slump that started in 2022 keeps going on with no signs of reversion.

TomasBM 4mo ago

Can confirm. From my experience, since December 2025, state-of-the-art models can replace a lot of need for junior, medior or senior developers. This meant that, in my example and given the same scope, one junior person with AI could easily handle multiple projects in 2026 that would require 2 or more medior people as recently as 2025. The only reasons for involving multiple people were time, learning opportunity, or increased scope - not skill. If we paused AI progress today, and ignored the option of adding agents recursively, the current state of things still provides several alternatives to any honest & informed manager: - Altruistic or optimistic: Keep all current jobs, and move the scope until there's a need and/or funds to hire more devs; - Pragmatic or neutral: Keep the current jobs, but not hire anyone else as long as the scope is balanced against time (our current situation); - Cold or pessimistic: Lay off anyone who doesn't fit the leanest model at current (or acceptably lower/higher) scope. I don't know whether this translates into a "job's crisis", and I can only hope it won't. But hope is not a career strategy, scope is not inexhaustible, and the political, economic and social pressures are quite strong even if you removed AI.