[jongjong]

As I've said before, AI is a force multiplier. A 10x developer is now a 100x developer and a -10x developer (complexity maker/value destroyer) is now a -100x developer.

I can understand why a lot of companies are cutting junior roles. What AI does is it automates most of the stuff that juniors are good at (coding fast) but not much of the stuff that the seniors are good at.

That said, I've worked with some juniors who managed to navigate; they do this by focusing on higher order thinking and developing a sense of what's important by interacting with senior engineers. Unfortunately, it raises the talent bar for juniors; they have to become more intelligent; not in a puzzle-solving way, but in a more architectural big-picture sort of way; almost like entrepreneurial thinking but more detailed/complex.

LLMs don't have a worldview; this means that they miss a lot of inconsistencies and logical contradictions. Also, most critically, LLMs don't know what's important (at least not accurately enough) so they can't prioritize effectively and they make a lot of bad decisions.

It's kind of interesting for me because a lot of the areas where I had a contrarian opinion in the field of software development, I now see LLMs getting trapped into those and getting bad results. It's like all my contrarian opinions became much more valuable.

[jygg4]

Kissing your ass comments aside… first of all - define a 10x developer.

We’ve all seen this phrase thrown around and it’s useless. Define the characteristics of one.

I’d argue the hiring of juniors is dropping because why should a firm ‘invest’ in someone that is likely to leave before they become of benefit for the firm? Mobility in the software engineer profession harms it. The fanfare around LLM’s enhances the argument via leverage provided to seniors.

E.g in accounting etc people tend to stick around for a long time in one firm… hence the expense is an investment. Firms invest in juniors to have future directors, partners etc. this is not a model that applies to software engineering. It may have done at one point, but not anymore.

[skyberrys]

Do the juniors now develop more reliably into 100x seniors or is it more of a fluctuating line?

[christophilus]

I agree. Agents are a form of leverage. Leverage accelerates things in all directions. You can use it to fuel massive growth and to accelerate bankruptcy.