Is AI really bringing/brought undeniable doom to Junior web developer roles. If yes, how can one adapt without selling their soul to prompting away all the knowledge they've gathered?
Hey there again junior dev who wishes to remain anonymous!
(They asked two really great, but not exactly related questions so I’m answering them both separately. Their other question was on tech hiring tips)
Not gonna lie, it’s really hard out there for junior developers right now.
Companies are making a mistake by not thinking long term on the implications, but they’ll come back around soon enough.
Not everyone is making this mistake, for example AWS CEO Matt Garman has 3 reasons AI should not replace Junior Developers
However, I think you’re looking at AI from the wrong perspective. It’s here, it’s useful, and it’s definitely not going anywhere.
Why not become an expert at building software with AI?
You’re not “prompting away the knowledge you’ve gathered”. You’re using what you have learned, with a new tool, that just so happens to be a big pile of matrix math on some magical numbers.
If you can’t beat them, join them…
Developing software with LLMs is a job altering new tool for us to be sure. I’m an old nerd so I remember when IDEs first started happening. Some felt like it was cheating and would erode a developer’s skills to have features like autocomplete!
In retrospect, that’s fucking silly.
Sure, I might no longer remember the exact string I use to import that one function, but the important thing is I know the function exists.
Use LLMs smartly to:
- teach you new tech skills faster
- to build more ambitious projects to help make you stand out
- rubber duck your debugging, question your assumptions, and suggest improvements
- to put polish on a project you otherwise couldn’t or wouldn’t do
- be your guide in unfamiliar tech waters
With AI, I might not even need to know the function exists, just that it (or something like it) should exist and direct the AI to find it or make it for you.
