0:00 What's going on, guys? So, I was reading 0:02 an article a couple days ago. I think it 0:04 was the CEO of of AWS saying that 0:07 replacing junior developers with AI is 0:09 the dumbest thing he's ever heard. And I 0:12 tend to agree with him. And I just want 0:13 to go over some points that you may or 0:16 may not agree with when it comes to just 0:18 AI and junior developers. 0:21 [Music] 0:26 So, before we jump into the video, I 0:27 just want to let you know about today's 0:29 sponsor. So, I think we've gotten way 0:31 too used to just giving up our personal 0:32 information and trusting every platform 0:34 that we use. 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So be sure to 1:19 check it out and give it a try. So 1:20 everywhere you look, you're going to see 1:22 anyone from executives to just random 1:24 users on Reddit saying that AI is going 1:27 to replace junior devs. And it is 1:29 happening to an extent. I know that that 1:31 Coinbase recently fired some people. Uh 1:34 I know that GitHub is telling their 1:36 developers to adapt to AI or get out. 1:39 And every other day there's some new 1:41 article about companies just cutting 1:43 entry-level positions basically because 1:45 AI can do that current job. And 1:48 personally, I do think that a lot of 1:51 these companies will realize that 1:52 they've made mistakes when it comes to 1:54 this. So, I'll actually I'm going to 1:56 talk about some reasons why I think that 1:58 I'm going to start with what I think is 2:00 the most detrimental, and that is that 2:02 they're killing their own future. You 2:04 know, not only their own future, but if 2:05 enough companies do this, then killing 2:08 software development in general. Because 2:10 if you think about it, we if we get rid 2:12 of all the junior devs, then we're not 2:14 passing the torch anymore. juniors uh 2:17 you know they can be pretty horrible 2:19 when they start. They might write 2:20 spaghetti code and they don't understand 2:22 half of what they're doing. They break 2:24 stuff left and right and it's the 2:25 seniors that help them and and kind of 2:27 show them the right way to do things 2:29 hopefully at least if they're they're 2:31 good developers and mentors. Um that's 2:34 kind of the natural pipeline of software 2:36 development. uh juniors become 2:39 mid-level, mid-levels become senior, 2:41 senior becomes the one mentoring the 2:43 next generation. And you break the 2:45 chain, then the whole system collapses. 2:47 And every senior developer was a junior 2:50 at one time. And if you stop hiring 2:52 juniors today, what happens in 5 years 2:55 when Bob retires or when Sarah gets 2:58 poached by Google? all that knowledge 3:00 about your systems, your codebase, your 3:02 weird business logic, it just walks out 3:05 the door and you're left with uh a bunch 3:08 of project managers that don't know how 3:09 to code and and Claude or or whatever AI 3:12 you're using. And the scary part is, 3:15 like I said, this isn't just going to be 3:17 this isn't just one or two companies 3:18 doing it. If if the entire industry 3:20 stops hiring juniors, where's the next 3:23 generation of senior developers coming 3:25 from? You know, they're not just going 3:26 to materialize out of thin air. And I'd 3:29 bet my life that these companies um that 3:32 do this the most will really regret it 3:34 in a few years. And I know some people 3:36 disagree, but you need human developers. 3:39 Writing syntax is it's only a small part 3:42 of building successful software. And I 3:45 think to me at least another thing that 3:47 doesn't make sense is the numbers. 3:49 Juniors cost companies the the least. So 3:52 why get rid of your employees that 3:54 you're paying 60 to 70k when uh in a few 3:57 years they'll be worth much more as 4:00 seniors? Uh it's also juniors. I mean I 4:03 know this more than anyone cuz I I teach 4:05 junior developers. They're the ones that 4:07 are excited and motivated to learn. They 4:09 still have that spark in them that seems 4:12 to go away after a few years of dealing 4:14 with with legacy code and unrealistic 4:17 deadlines and and just uh pointless 4:20 meetings, stuff like that. Uh, when's 4:22 the last time you saw a senior developer 4:24 really get genuinely excited about a new 4:27 framework or about anything to do with 4:29 code? Half of them are just complaining 4:30 that they have to write React every day. 4:33 But juniors, they're the ones watching 4:35 YouTube tutorials, taking courses on the 4:37 weekends. They're also the ones asking 4:40 questions, and they know that they don't 4:42 know it all, unlike a lot of seniors. 4:45 And a motivated junior developer is a 4:47 very valuable person to a company as 4:49 long as they're not a complete So 4:52 you're literally firing your most 4:53 enthusiastic employees. And from a pure 4:57 ROI perspective, you invest a year or 4:59 two training a junior. And if you do it 5:01 right, you have a loyal senior developer 5:04 that knows your system inside and out. 5:06 And that's worth way more than the 5:07 initial 60k investment. But if you fire 5:10 them all, you're going to be paying 150k 5:12 for senior developers who need six 5:15 months to to understand your code base. 5:17 And again, we're going to run out of 5:19 senior developers at some point. And and 5:21 I'm a big fan of AI tools. You know, I 5:24 use them all the time. I think that they 5:25 really increase productivity, but I 5:27 think there's going to be a real wakeup 5:28 call u for businesses uh when they 5:31 realize that there's, you know, there's 5:33 value to human beings that that no AI 5:36 can give. Now I want to talk a little 5:38 bit about just the junior dev role in 5:40 general in the age of AI. So in the past 5:43 a team might have a junior just create 5:46 all the buttons or or do something do 5:48 the really mundane stuff right 5:50 boilerplate. I do think those days are 5:52 over with AI. Uh I think the juniors are 5:55 going to have much more responsibilities 5:57 now because they can use AI. Uh, and to 6:01 an extent, I think that it'll make the 6:03 junior role more exciting because 6:06 instead of spending months learning how 6:08 to center a div or writing the same crud 6:10 operations over and over, juniors can 6:13 jump straight into the the fun stuff, 6:15 the interesting stuff, you know, and AI 6:17 can handle the boilerplate, the 6:18 repetitive components, the basic 6:20 styling, uh, which means juniors can 6:22 focus on more important things like 6:24 system architecture, and they can solve 6:27 actual problems. I do think juniors 6:29 should spend some time writing 6:31 boilerplate and doing that boring 6:33 mundane stuff though. Uh because they 6:35 should know how that works. But that's 6:38 not all they're going to be doing now. 6:39 So instead of being the person who gets 6:41 stuck with all the grunt work all the 6:43 time, they become the person who knows 6:46 how to or hopefully they become the 6:48 person that knows how to leverage AI 6:50 tools to be really productive. They're 6:52 like an AI enhanced, you know, developer 6:55 from day one. And I know that that's a 6:57 very optimistic, almost naive uh point 7:00 of view, but things really do tend to 7:03 work themselves out. So, I think juniors 7:06 will be all right in the long run. 7:07 Things are are never as as bad as we say 7:09 they're going to be. Uh especially a lot 7:12 of the content creators on YouTube and 7:14 so on. Uh they do the the whole doom and 7:16 gloom thing, but it's always blown out 7:18 of proportion and things just always 7:20 seem to stabilize. And I don't know why 7:22 so many people think that, you know, 7:24 this time it's going to be different. 7:26 But anyway, it's just something to think 7:28 about. I'd like to hear your opinions on 7:30 this. So, leave a comment letting us 7:32 know. and I'll see you in the light next
