The future of juniors in the “age of AI”
It is said that junior developers are no more: companies don’t need them because it’s “easy” to replace them with language models (I would not go so far as to call it AI).
At the same time, new people coming to the industry are questioning themselves whether they should pursue it or not.
I think both angles are incorrect.
You see, companies never really needed just there programmers. They required problem solvers. And for LLMs to solve problems elegantly and eloquently they need guidance. Simply because it is an algorithm that lacks insight and intuition. And that won’t change.
So, it is better to pose a question differently: do you need problem solvers?. Because not every business do. Sometimes you just need a pair of hands and that’s where language models are capable.
At the same time, from the perspective of a student–who is wondering what to pursue–the question is not whether or not you will be replaced. That’s not a correct way to think about it.
The question is: do you enjoy solving problems? Because if you do, it doesn’t matter whether it is programming, architecture, data modelling, analytics or anything in between. You can leverage LLMs to give you a hand and at the same time teach yourself.
You have to approach things more fundamentally. It is not a question of what pays more in the moment. It is a question of what you truly enjoy doing for the rest of your life. Given, that is not a singular thing, but a whole range of different things. All of them allow you to compound experience.
The choice you really have to make is to pick the thing you will not get bored from. And if you don’t pick right on the first try–just try once more, there is no limit on the number of attempts.