I refresh LinkedIn and see another post: "Junior roles are dead." Another thread on Reddit: "AI is replacing entry-level devs." Another think piece...
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This honestly gave me a bit of hope. As someone still trying to enter the field, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the “juniors are doomed” posts online.
The part about curiosity and asking better questions being real strengths for juniors really clicked.
Thanks for sharing this, needed the reminder.
Great to hear @itsugo! With every new technology, the "doomed" posts arrive. But as history proves, the ones who adapt survive. Be the ones who adapts.
Great points, but is AI also compressing the ladder? The starter tasks juniors learned on are being automated, and many teams lack mentorship bandwidth. If low-risk work shrinks—and seniors adopt AI too—where do juniors get reps, and what's the incentive to hire them?
@voncartergriffen That's a really valid point and good that you mention this! I think with energy, fresh mindset, and curiosity are the things that will set juniors apart from seniors.
And you're right: AI is compressing the ladder, and the mentorship bandwidth crisis is real.
But the "low-risk" work isn't disappearing, it's shifting. Juniors aren't writing boilerplate anymore: they're reviewing AI-generated code, debugging edge cases it missed, and refactoring the quick fixes that created tech debt. That's actually better learning than copying Stack Overflow patterns. Where juniors get reps now:
The incentive? Teams without juniors are building knowledge silos. When only seniors understand the system, you've created a bottleneck that kills growth. Smart companies see the pipeline as velocity, not just future talent.
But you're right that many teams don't think long-term. The market's harder than it should be because of that short-sightedness.
Great post! As a junior dev just starting out, I’m learning to combine curiosity, fast learning, and tools like AI to actually contribute—even without years of experience. It’s motivating to see that fresh perspectives and energy matter as much as technical skills. Excited to keep experimenting and growing!
Thank you @alejandrotg-code ! Definitely, keep it up!
Your honest gave me a hope
Very great speech. It really encourage me to keep going although my fear to be outdated and give me a new way to use AI in my cursus.
Thanks @shadowchrist100 , I appreciate it and glad that it encourages you.
For as long as Cars never replaced Bicycles, AI will never replace junior devs. It will only change the learning curve.
@tochukwu_dev I think so too. There's a tendency going on currently that juniors will disappear and will become obsolete, but once we get over the hype of vibe-coding and the likes, it will (hopefully) turn out to be the opposite and there's a lot of opportunity to grow and learn for newcomers. Yes, the initial learning phase will be a lot different than when I started 8 years ago but it's just different.
Uplifting post, but after reading this it might now be the seniors rather than the juniors who become fearful ;-)
Hahahah, good point @leob! I guess the advantage that seniors have is that we were there before the age of AI, so we have that critical thinking down (hopefully). But yes, I'm definitely keeping a close eye on the new generation of devs.
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This is a great article,thanks for sharing this