--- title: Everyone Is Building AI to Replace Developers. Nobody Is... description: AI coding tools are automating the tedious work that used to train junior developers into seniors, and almost nobody is planning for the resulting skills gap.... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/everyone-is-building-ai-to-replace-developers-nobody-is-building-the-plan-for-what-comes-after--aglxad8ca twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Everyone Is Building AI to Replace Developers. Nobody Is Building the Plan for What Comes After. | daily.dev og:description: AI coding tools are automating the tedious work that used to train junior developers into seniors, and almost nobody is planning for the resulting skills gap.... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/everyone-is-building-ai-to-replace-developers-nobody-is-building-the-plan-for-what-comes-after--aglxad8ca og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/AGLXAd8ca.png og:image:alt: Everyone Is Building AI to Replace Developers. Nobody Is Building the Plan for What Comes After. og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Everyone Is Building AI to Replace Developers. Nobody Is Building the Plan for What Comes After. **[DEV](https://daily.dev/sources/devto)** · 9 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary AI coding tools are automating the tedious work that used to train junior developers into seniors, and almost nobody is planning for the resulting skills gap. Multiple studies show entry-level tech hiring falling, with estimates ranging from 9% to 25% depending on the source and timeframe. Companies optimize for this quarter's cost, juniors optimize for getting hired, and seniors optimize for output, so the pipeline problem falls through the cracks for everyone. The piece suggests fixes like a weekly 'agent-off' task, protected mentoring hours, and a PR template requiring a human to explain every changed line. It also notes Reuters reported Meta's AI-native restructuring effort, 'Project OT,' fell apart after an employee revolt. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How much has entry-level software developer hiring dropped because of AI? Estimates vary widely depending on the source: Stanford Digital Economy Lab found early-career US software developer employment fell nearly 20% since late 2022, SignalFire's State of Talent 2025 report found entry-level hiring at the 15 biggest tech firms fell 25% from 2023 to 2024, a Harvard study found junior employment dropped roughly 9-10% within six quarters of generative AI adoption, and Irish Times reporting found a 16.2% year-on-year drop in Q2 for AI-augmented jobs specifically. _Developers tracking how AI reshapes hiring and career paths can follow the data on daily.dev._ ### What happened to Meta's AI-native restructuring plan called Project OT? Reuters reported in an August 2026 investigation that Meta's internal restructuring effort, 'Project OT,' built around an AI-native model with smaller employee groups, ran into an employee revolt and fell apart. This suggests that replacing traditional team structures with AI-centric models is harder to execute in practice than it looks in planning documents. _Teams weighing AI-driven restructuring can track real-world outcomes like this on daily.dev._ ### How can a team keep training junior developers to become seniors when AI agents handle the tedious coding work? One proposed approach: require one agent-free task per sprint for juniors with full ownership, hold weekly walkthroughs with a senior, protect 2 hours per week of senior mentoring time, and require that any AI-authored pull request be explainable line by line by a human reviewer. These are offered as adaptable starting points, not a fixed standard. _Engineering leads shaping AI-era mentoring policy can compare approaches on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [AI is creating a generation of developers who can’t debug their own code](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-is-creating-a-generation-of-developers-who-can-t-debug-their-own-code-bbmqymdif) · The New Stack · 3 upvotes · 1 comments - [The Junior Hiring Crisis](https://daily.dev/posts/the-junior-hiring-crisis-dz0laglya) · Hacker News · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [We're Building AI to Replace Ourselves. What's the Plan?](https://daily.dev/posts/we-re-building-ai-to-replace-ourselves-what-s-the-plan--3brb2ildh) · DEV · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Disappearing Senior: AI and Entry Level Jobs](https://daily.dev/posts/the-disappearing-senior-ai-and-entry-level-jobs-d3dlrkj2y) · SQL Authority · 168 upvotes · 32 comments --- Tags: [#ai](https://daily.dev/tags/ai), [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career), [#ai-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-coding) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/everyone-is-building-ai-to-replace-developers-nobody-is-building-the-plan-for-what-comes-after--aglxad8ca) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Everyone Is Building AI to Replace Developers. 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