AI and remote work is a disaster for junior software engineers(medium.com)
medium.com
AI and remote work is a disaster for junior software engineers
https://medium.com/@lukas_kosinski/ai-and-remote-work-is-a-disaster-for-junior-software-engineers-a377b1d8ed20
11 comments
As a senior dev and founder who is using AI coding very very heavily I agree 100% and have no idea what the solution is
If this hit 10+ years ago I have no idea what I would have done...
I started out doing relatively basic web development and now AI would basically be able to one shot everything I did. Of course at the time it was a little bit more difficult because of all of the cross browser testing that was actually required (I just got flashbacks to "fond" memories of manually testing several different browsers which I haven't done for several years) but especially now when development is a little bit easier in those respects it would be game over
If this hit 10+ years ago I have no idea what I would have done...
I started out doing relatively basic web development and now AI would basically be able to one shot everything I did. Of course at the time it was a little bit more difficult because of all of the cross browser testing that was actually required (I just got flashbacks to "fond" memories of manually testing several different browsers which I haven't done for several years) but especially now when development is a little bit easier in those respects it would be game over
He mentions that they have physical equipment they must interact with and that is an excellent reason to be at least hybrid sometimes, but if you cannot make remote work successful that is an issue to be resolved, not a justification for RTO.
* Most companies have staff spread across different office locations
* Your clients are in other office locations
* Your suppliers are in other office locations
* Even if somehow you and your clients and your suppliers are all in the same building, you should still be conducting your meetings through something like Teams so that you have recordings of everything, something that juniors can go back to see the rationale behind decisions or revisit the training sessions done for them.
Even if you are going into the office 7 days a week, you should be operating a remote-first model.
* Most companies have staff spread across different office locations
* Your clients are in other office locations
* Your suppliers are in other office locations
* Even if somehow you and your clients and your suppliers are all in the same building, you should still be conducting your meetings through something like Teams so that you have recordings of everything, something that juniors can go back to see the rationale behind decisions or revisit the training sessions done for them.
Even if you are going into the office 7 days a week, you should be operating a remote-first model.
Yes, the market will compress drastically. You'll have a few experts leveraging/debugging AI, or designing/architecting novel things, and there will be no need for "average" engineers anymore.
Most junior engineers today (70% ?) will need to switch fields.
Most junior engineers today (70% ?) will need to switch fields.
What happens when the leveraging experts die?
Well nobody exactly knows, but I imagine it's the same thing that happened when everybody stopped learning assembly language...
- a few people still specialize in it
- a lot of people are helpless if the problem exists at that layer, and just ignore or workaround it because it's not cost-effective to fix
- maybe in 20 years AI will already have closed those gaps. If not there may be a big supply/demand incentive for experts which would create high salaries and cause more people to specialize in it.
(To be clear I'm not trying to argue this is good, these are just my predictions)
- a few people still specialize in it
- a lot of people are helpless if the problem exists at that layer, and just ignore or workaround it because it's not cost-effective to fix
- maybe in 20 years AI will already have closed those gaps. If not there may be a big supply/demand incentive for experts which would create high salaries and cause more people to specialize in it.
(To be clear I'm not trying to argue this is good, these are just my predictions)
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A junior developer is a natural enemy of a senior developer.
In the best case they will be a time sink.
In the worst case they will be coming after your job.
In the best case they will be a time sink.
In the worst case they will be coming after your job.
I've worked remotely/hybrid since 2018. Most of that time, I was either the only or lead dev on the project. I was rarely the subject matter expert.
With no senior colleague to lean on, I spent countless hours researching online, asking dumb questions on Stack Overflow, and experimenting on my own. Would a mentor have sped things up? Absolutely.
But my self-driven research went far deeper than any Slack reply to "how do I do X?" ever could. I learned more, not less.
Not everyone gets that luxury, I know. Often you need to move fast, prove yourself, and asking a colleague is the obvious shortcut.
But here's the thing: every time you ask someone else (be it senior or AI) instead of working through the problem yourself, the knowledge you gain is shallower. The real value of help isn't getting answers. It's not staying stuck and frustrated.
That's exactly why I think AI is the best thing that could happen to juniors. It's always available. It explains complex topics simply. It draws diagrams. It meets you where you are. The old saying still holds: "it's not about the tools you have, but how you use them".
As for remote work, I love it. But it's not for everyone, and that's the hard part for businesses: spotting people who run errands, and postpone everything instead of delivering.
Just few companies do remote well. Most just copy in-office playbook. That doesn't work. Remote demands its own processes - structured check-ins, intentional gatherings, and deliberate time spent with junior teammates to compensate for the missing hallway conversations.
Remote work is harder than office work. Not technically, but socially and operationally. It exposes every management gap.
If your remote setup isn't working, don't default to "see you in the office." Audit your processes first. Because that same wall will hit you in the office too - you just won't see it as clearly.
Office doesn't fix bad management. It just hides the symptoms.
With no senior colleague to lean on, I spent countless hours researching online, asking dumb questions on Stack Overflow, and experimenting on my own. Would a mentor have sped things up? Absolutely.
But my self-driven research went far deeper than any Slack reply to "how do I do X?" ever could. I learned more, not less.
Not everyone gets that luxury, I know. Often you need to move fast, prove yourself, and asking a colleague is the obvious shortcut.
But here's the thing: every time you ask someone else (be it senior or AI) instead of working through the problem yourself, the knowledge you gain is shallower. The real value of help isn't getting answers. It's not staying stuck and frustrated.
That's exactly why I think AI is the best thing that could happen to juniors. It's always available. It explains complex topics simply. It draws diagrams. It meets you where you are. The old saying still holds: "it's not about the tools you have, but how you use them".
As for remote work, I love it. But it's not for everyone, and that's the hard part for businesses: spotting people who run errands, and postpone everything instead of delivering.
Just few companies do remote well. Most just copy in-office playbook. That doesn't work. Remote demands its own processes - structured check-ins, intentional gatherings, and deliberate time spent with junior teammates to compensate for the missing hallway conversations.
Remote work is harder than office work. Not technically, but socially and operationally. It exposes every management gap.
If your remote setup isn't working, don't default to "see you in the office." Audit your processes first. Because that same wall will hit you in the office too - you just won't see it as clearly.
Office doesn't fix bad management. It just hides the symptoms.
Work output shouldn't be any different at home vs. in office. I'm more productive at home and I'm am more inclined to play around after hours with ideas or solutions.
AI is a bit worrying from a developmental stand point. I learned how to code during my first two internships and it was stuff that Claude could probably one shot today. That being said, anyone whose worked with a terrible legacy system can probably attest that it is filled with garbage and an equivalent pass through documented by Claude is way better than some human developers work from ten years ago.