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There’s an irony too, in that junior engineers are more likely to understand and use AI tools, and quickly become more performant than their senior engineers as

There’s an irony too, in that junior engineers are more likely to understand and use AI tools, and quickly become more performant than their senior engineers asking questions on stack overflow. It’s what’s happening at my company and it feels silly since certain projects are way behind and constantly hiring because the very senior lead refuses to use AI

threatofrain 2mo ago
Seniors don’t use SO anymore, it virtually died if you look at traffic. The reason the market is so tough for juniors isn’t because seniors are bad at chat or agent workflows, it’s quite the opposite of what you say.
- win311fwg 2mo ago
  > Seniors don’t use SO anymore Did they ever? SO wasn't around during my junior days so I never got to experience it from that angle, but it looked like it would have been an incredible resource for those who juniored in its heyday. However, I never found it to be successful in delivering to the problems I encountered as a senior.
  - cataphract 2mo ago
    Right, SO was always better at answering beginner questions then advanced ones, except if the complex question had a broad appeal. Part of it is because the format is not good for asking a context-heavy question. Another part because you were dependent on the pool of people answering, and the more niched the question was (using a library not very popular, for instance) or the more expertise it required, the less likely you were to find someone.
    - threatofrain 2mo ago
      Back then library and framework authors were also less competitive. Now open source authors do the full court press with very beautiful docs for both humans and agents.
dudul 2mo ago
"junior engineers are more likely to understand and use AI tools, and quickly become more performant than their senior engineers asking questions on stack overflow" Anything to back up this claim? SO is dead, senior engineers don't use it. Why are junior more likely to understand and use AI tools than senior? I would counter with "senior are more likely to properly use and keep AI in check than junior".

threatofrain 2mo ago

Seniors don’t use SO anymore, it virtually died if you look at traffic. The reason the market is so tough for juniors isn’t because seniors are bad at chat or agent workflows, it’s quite the opposite of what you say.

win311fwg 2mo ago
> Seniors don’t use SO anymore Did they ever? SO wasn't around during my junior days so I never got to experience it from that angle, but it looked like it would have been an incredible resource for those who juniored in its heyday. However, I never found it to be successful in delivering to the problems I encountered as a senior.
- cataphract 2mo ago
  Right, SO was always better at answering beginner questions then advanced ones, except if the complex question had a broad appeal. Part of it is because the format is not good for asking a context-heavy question. Another part because you were dependent on the pool of people answering, and the more niched the question was (using a library not very popular, for instance) or the more expertise it required, the less likely you were to find someone.
  - threatofrain 2mo ago
    Back then library and framework authors were also less competitive. Now open source authors do the full court press with very beautiful docs for both humans and agents.

dudul 2mo ago

"junior engineers are more likely to understand and use AI tools, and quickly become more performant than their senior engineers asking questions on stack overflow" Anything to back up this claim? SO is dead, senior engineers don't use it. Why are junior more likely to understand and use AI tools than senior? I would counter with "senior are more likely to properly use and keep AI in check than junior".