[javier2]

4 months ago I was incredibly dismissive. After having used Claude Code extensively since then, I think these LLM tools definitively has a a place in software development, but with every new tool in software development, the floor has been raised for what can be completed with less resources. I'm more worried for the junior engineers coming in now.

[kzahel]

Why would you be worried about junior engineers? I see this expressed a lot. It seems kind of condescending to me. It's just a different build toolchain. We can build faster, and having a lot of experience helps you know how things should fit together. People figure shit out. There are plenty of juniors that are way smarter than you or I. Do you mean like a junior who is not as clever as you will have a hard time getting their foot in?

[ekjhgkejhgk]

Let me tell you why.

We have a junior in our team. In the past 2 years he hasn't written any code himself, because he can't code. He's been using chatgpt to write his code for 2 years, and he mostly delivers stuff, but the code is shit. Our manager isn't aware because he doesn't read our code, but I do and it's super obvious. But the point is the junior can't code.

Over the past month the company deployed Claude internally with tools etc. I, who can code well, picked it up in about 2 days despite the fact that I had never regularly used AI. Now I can produce code using Claude as reliably as the "experts" in our company (to be clear in our company by "experts" I mean good users, not people who actually understand how these machines work). The junior is still struggling go get Claude to do what he wants.

The point is the following: This new technology, like all new technologies, raises the minimum amount of things you have to be proficient at in order to even be at the bottom of the corporate ladder. The more you know the faster you learn, therefore those who know less (juniors) will struggle for longer with the new technology than without it.

I feel like I've been doing multiplications with pen and paper and the other guy doesn't understand the concept of multiplication. Now someone gave us a spreadsheet. I can do multiplications a billion times faster, and the other guy still doesn't understand the concept of multiplication.

You can say that our junior is especially bad and I don't disagree. But the phenomenon of "the more you know the faster you learn therefore new technologies impact juniors harder" is on average true regardless.

[javier2]

Im just worried many will give them less of a chance to learn, in the same way we were given.

[storus]

Because you need to understand the output of coding agents when there is an issue or even a decision to be made. Even Opus-4.6 gets into rough states where it spews out garbage or suboptimal code and juniors might not catch it. Reading somebody else's code and evaluate it quickly is a tough skill to learn compared to writing one's own code; slow thinking vs fast thinking mode.

[tjansen]

> People figure shit out.

True, but junior developers used to provide a lot of value while doing this. Now their value, while they are still figuring it out, has gone down immensely. For a company, there is no value in letting a junior dev write code anymore. And for reviewing the AI output, you need someone more experienced.

[kzahel]

there will be plenty of "juniors" who can still code circles around you and me and will do just fine.