[atleastoptimal]

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.

[bwestergard]

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-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...

"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]

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]

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.

[mikrotikker]

I thought 80% of those layoffs were bougie HR jobs

[piloto_ciego]

I hate to be "that guy" but you're crazy if you don't see AI being able to do greenfield projects you'd accept.

I mean, in your defense, last year I think you would have been right, but right now? Codex rocks, as does Claude. I am literally making money shipping a greenfield project to a customer right now. I'm basically a cheap consultant that is incrementally adding features to make something exactly what they want for way cheaper than it would be to do it the old way.

There are hiccups, outages, things to fix etc. but the customer is happy with the output, and the reduced price means they get bespoke solutions rather than some BS one size fits all SaaS app. Then my job is maintenance and effectively "ITSM." Which kind of sucks in some ways, I miss writing real code for real projects, but this is the future going forward. If you want something for your business, you'll generate it rather than pay for it and for now at least, getting beyond localhost requires someone who knows a bit about computers or is willing to learn. Most small businesses aren't willing to learn.

Now, to your point. Is the code all that clean? Nope (and in your defense sometimes I read through the codebase and shudder)... but who cares? Like, for awhile I would go through and frantically edit it, but why? It worked. Not only that, but there's going to be a new model in 3 months or whatever that can clean it up and make it less shitty. I've literally done that a couple times since I started doing this in January.

The customer ain't reading the code. They don't care as long as the the functionality works - that's what counts. The gazillion tests I have keep it stable as I push code, and the CI/CD pipeline removes a ton of the ass pain I'd have without it.

The biggest thing I'm worried about when it comes to clean code and good design is trying to make sure I keep the token count down on these projects so I can actually do meaningful work without burning through a week's worth of tokens in a single day. That, and I like to try to keep a sort of architectural bird's eye view on what's happening...

Like, I'm not sure what niche of the industry you're in, but for the stuff I'm using it for, stuff is working really well with LLMs.

[kalb_almas]

>Now, to your point. Is the code all that clean? Nope... but who cares?

Typically, this is not the type of phrase that is said right before everything goes extremely well

[dw_arthur]

I assume they are working on low stakes software. Does it really matter if you use an LLM to code a scheduling app for a hair salon or veterinary clinic?

[lesuorac]

Meh, stakes don't matter.

So much of the financial world runs off excel.

Think about all the geneticists that complain about excel re-writing DNA sequences.

It doesn't matter if its high stakes or low stakes. People use the software that generates the results they like. Not the software that is "correct to use".

[lifeisstillgood]

So to try and understand your position - you are hired by a small? Company in which sector? And you built an app that does what? And I think most importantly - how did you find the gig? Were they explicitly hiring a AI capable person to do X?

[piloto_ciego]

I run my own thing since the start of the year. I’m building little tools for an industry I’m highly familiar that needs very specific scheduling software, data tools, tracking tools etc. My old job was a boring as a government bureaucrat.

I started this by doing some work for an old employer that asked me to start by modernizing an excel spreadsheet into an app I made for them like 10 years ago? They kept asking for more though since, and they’re my biggest customer right now. Which is good because I only have the bandwidth for like one more place right now.

I’ve had a few sort of one off things with other places? But I’m working on getting another company in the same industry right now and I’ll be able to adapt most of the code I’ve built here for another company if they end up deciding to use me.

But my biggest value to companies is “I already know this industry extremely well.”

[nwatson]

I'm curious, did you choose "blind pilot" as your username before or after your adoption of LLMs for projects?

[piloto_ciego]

I am a blind pilot lol, but I’m not going to dox myself further

[txru]

Since this comment began so rudely, I decided against reading the rest. All the best.

[piloto_ciego]

You do you, I literally say why you would have been right a year ago, but “so rudely” is a pretty funny stretch.

[littlexsparkee]

There's no rule that a phenomenon needs 1 cause - the decline could've been junior cuts to start after '22 since they have less seniority and impact, followed by a substitution effect after broad LLM adoption. I don't doubt that remote had an additive effect on productivity via mentoring etc as well.

[red75prime]

> https://www.employamerica.org/labor-market-analysis/dont-bla...

I would have preferred someone who uses a null hypothesis and statistical tests.

[OptionOfT]

> 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.

[deadbabe]

The need for seniors isn’t going to “shoot through the roof” if they are using AI.

If senior engineers are even 2x more productive with AI, then it’s like there are 2x as many senior engineers.

Most likely, seniors will be 10x more productive in 5 years using AI. This outpaces the retirement rate.

All the software engineers we need for the next 20-30 years are already in the current workforce.

Only way juniors can rise to the level of seniors will be through independent projects, long unpaid internships/apprenticeships, etc.

The industry will now have heavy gatekeeping built in.

[rurp]

> All the software engineers we need for the next 20-30 years are already in the current workforce.

There's no way of knowing what the industry will look like decades from now. Even assuming the prediction that seniors become 10x more productive, that would mean software becomes much cheaper to produce. Does that induce enough demand for additional software that keeps employment levels high? Could be, who knows.

Alternatively, maybe software hits a saturation point where there just isn't as much new ground to cover and employment levels crater. That could happen too.

[deadbabe]

Ok so even less demand for software engineers? All the software engineers that the industry will ever need again have already been created?

[dragandj]

... and by the year 50, they will be a trillion times more productive?

[mohamedkoubaa]

Exactly. Now most new hires are apprentices, before they might have been hired to do chores

[atleastoptimal]

people keep saying that assuming that in 5-10 years AI won’t be as good as senior engineers

[OptionOfT]

If that is the case there is a worldwide crisis. It means that nearly all knowledge work will be gone.

[sublinear]

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?

[t-3]

5 years ago AI was a joke, today it is a major industry tool.

[gruez]

>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_]

What are you talking about? AI is currently better at the things it can do than the average random person on the streets.

[JeremyNT]

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.

[gruez]

>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_EPC...

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.

[tboyd47]

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

[TomasBM]

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.

[themafia]

> 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]

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]

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]

What do you mean the article lacks data? Did you miss the BLS report?

[MoonWalk]

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]

The one with a weird chip on their shoulder is not the parent I can tell you that much.

[nawgz]

> 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]

>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?

[HDThoreaun]

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]

That's a problem for the next CEO of course

[atleastoptimal]

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]

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]

> 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.

[thewebguyd]

> 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.

[scottious]

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

[icedchai]

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.

[leptons]

"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.

[thrownaway561]

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]

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 :/)

[epolanski]

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