The Bad

Getting your foot in the door as a junior developer is difficult. It's no secret that hiring in the tech field has decreased, and this could be for numerous reasons: economic slowdown, remote work shift to a more flexible workforce, the highly competitive environment, and AI agents and automation. Let's focus on that last one, AI agents and automation. Increasingly, tasks that were previously done by humans will now be performed by technology. The tasks that will be most affected by this trend are the ones that were once done by junior developers. AI can perform the tasks of coding, testing, debugging, and analysis more efficiently and accurately than humans, leaving junior developers even more out of luck.

Looking at this graph from November 2022 (data from ZipRecruiter), we can see that already junior developers are not in high demand. And for good reason, companies already understand their tasks can be easily given to AI agents and they should focus their efforts on hiring experienced developers to improve their teams.

This brings up the concern for the future workforce of developers, if junior developers continue having a difficult time finding work today then who will be the mid and senior-level developers of tomorrow? Probably best to pick a different career.

The Good

The era of AI is thrilling, particularly if you are in the technology sector. It is even more interesting if you are a budding junior developer looking to enter the workforce. The deciding factor of success or failure is determined by who effectively utilizes the tools available to them. And that is all AI is: a new tool to enhance your productivity, efficiency and problem-solving abilities. The adoption of AI as a tool is what will separate the new era of successful junior developers from the unsuccessful ones.

AI is not here to replace our jobs. However, it may shift the nature of the work that junior developers do. For example, junior developers may be tasked with building, maintaining, and improving AI systems, rather than performing the tasks that the systems are designed to automate. It's important to keep in mind that AI Agents, like Chat GPT, are more confident than anything. It can serve the wrong answer to a question or request and be ignorant of it. AI agents are only as accurate as the user providing them with the information. This is why AI will not replace our jobs because someone who is not a developer would not be able to give Chat GPT the proper prompts to begin the application design and development process. A nice analogy I like to think of is that these code generation tools (like Chat GPT) are akin to power tools for a carpenter. They will make the professional more efficient at their job but will not fill in the lack of experience for non-professionals to do the same.

The developers that incorporate AI use into their workflow will be more productive, efficient, and capable than their competition and ultimately reap the career benefits of tomorrow.