[zoeey]

This past year, I’ve seen a lot of entry-level jobs quietly disappear. It’s not that people are getting laid off, it’s that no one’s hiring beginners anymore. What’s really missing isn’t just the jobs, it’s the chance to grow. If there’s nowhere to start, how are new people supposed to get in and learn?

[antonymoose]

Were there ever that many low-level Junior jobs though?

In my experience, almost everyone in college would get an internship Junior / Senior year and convert into an FTE after graduation. Those that were not so talented or not so lucky usually struggled to find work, taking many months to finally land a job. Most typically at a Booz Allen Hamilton type of place that was just throwing bodies into seats.

At all of my employers, I’ve never really seen any openings for Juniors, only Mid and Senior positions. The few Juniors we did bring on outside of an internship pipeline were either internal transfers, e.g. a SOC analyst given a chance or a nepotism type of hire.

[_heimdall]

I got out of school 15 years ago so its been a while now, but at that time there were a ton of junior roles.

I got a CS bachelors from a decent state school, nothing fancy, and everyone I kept in touch with had found an entry level role pretty quickly after graduation.

I did do an internship and had an offer from them, but the psy was pretty low and I really didn't want to move where they were. It was a bit stressful turning that down early senior year without a backup yet, but I ended up with quite a few interviews and an offer before graduation.

[endemic]

It took me ~2 years after graduation to find a development job, which was from a "can you code HTML by hand?" classified on craigslist.

[zOneLetter]

That's funny because I've been rejected from Booz Allen so many times lol

[antonymoose]

The fun part is when BAH rejects you, but you end up at a sub-contractor working side-by-side with the guys that rejected you anyway.

[spacephysics]

Unfortunately i think many of those jobs can also be attributed to general economic health post low interest rates.

Companies now need to leave pre-revenue and turn a profit, or if you’re an established company you need to cut costs/increase margins from other economic headwinds (tariffs, inflation, gov policies etc)

A Junior dev (and most devs onboarding) will typically require 6-8 months to start being able to meaningfully contribute, then there’s a general oversight/mentorship for a few years after.

Yes they produce, however I think junior’s market salary plus the opportunity cost lost of the higher salaried mid and senior level in mentoring is a hard pill to swallow.

The team i work on is stretched very thin, and even after layoffs (which management agreed they went too far with) it’s pulling teeth to get another dev to build things companies are begging for and even willing to separately pay cash upfront for us to build

If you’re getting into the current job market as a junior, you’ll likely need to go heavy in the buzzword tech, accept a position from a smaller company that pays substantially less, then in 1-2 years job hop into a higher paying mid level role (not to say 1-2 years makes anyone mid level imo)

[ViewTrick1002]

The question is always: Is this simply the effects of a recession or AI?

No one wants to hire juniors, but when the alternative is too expensive they are an acceptable solution.

Or if you have some incentive structure where you can get more work out of them like consultancies.

With a market flooded with senior people accepting a paycut for a job why even attempt hiring juniors?

[insane_dreamer]

The US economy is not in a recession, at least by the standard definition of recession.

[celeryd]

Sadly, they will just have to try harder. It is still doable especially for an American, and I'm not a fan of these doomsayers' prophesying. There is still hope because TikTok and video games are putting most young people in a trance.

[blitzar]

TikTok and video games are also a more viable path to making $100,000 a month than any other professional path.

[rs186]

It is a career path, but it 1) is a path that only works for a small amount of people, most people don't earn anything like that 2) requires a special kind of personality and set of skills 3) is subject to the whim of algorithms 4) requires brand building over time but can be destroyed overnight for many reasons. Most "regular" jobs are much more stable.

[blitzar]

Not so long ago people who played with programming and computers were wasting their time and potential, disappointed their parents and would have been better off getting a "regular" job.

[rs186]

Sure but your comment does not address all those facts that I said. So many jobs were unstable and remain unstable over the past 20 years.

[mminer237]

Um, no. Way more young people are making that kind of money by being a programmer or doctor or lawyer or nurse or actuary or something versus the minuscule number of people making any significant money on tiktok or video games.