--- title: Don’t Hire Juniors to Write Code, Hire Them to Become... description: Christine Miao, Founder and Researcher at Technical Accounting, argues that cutting junior engineer hires is a short-sighted strategy driven by investors who... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/h3oljtk7n twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Don’t Hire Juniors to Write Code, Hire Them to Become Seniors | daily.dev og:description: Christine Miao, Founder and Researcher at Technical Accounting, argues that cutting junior engineer hires is a short-sighted strategy driven by investors who... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/h3oljtk7n og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/H3OLJTK7N.png og:image:alt: Post cover image 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. # Don’t Hire Juniors to Write Code, Hire Them to Become Seniors **[ShiftMag - Insightful Engineering Content](https://daily.dev/sources/shiftmag)** · [@anastasijauspenski](https://daily.dev/anastasijauspenski) · 228 upvotes · 34 comments ## Summary Christine Miao, Founder and Researcher at Technical Accounting, argues that cutting junior engineer hires is a short-sighted strategy driven by investors who conflate cost reduction with value creation. She makes the case that juniors are essential for organizational survival, bring fresh perspectives, and are more open to AI tool adoption than senior engineers with entrenched workflows. On mentorship in the AI era, she identifies a bimodal outcome: juniors either produce ununderstandable AI-generated code or level up rapidly in three months — the difference being genuine organizational commitment to mentorship and a solid engineering foundation. Companies that stop hiring juniors risk becoming too brittle to adapt, unable to transfer institutional knowledge, and too understaffed to train anyone new when the problem becomes critical. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@confidentcoding** · 41 upvotes > Ah, you mean the thing that we've been doing for decades upon decades? There's only been two instances where we stopped: > > - The offshoring wave in the 00's > - The rollout of LLMs > > Both dangled the carrot of "cheap code" and essentially not needing to train up junior staff any longer; you just have a few seniors managing a team, whether its a team of people overseas or a team of "agents". > > Both are myopic and shortsighted to the health of the industry and, more importantly, the businesses that think they are being efficient. **@elmarchavez** · 7 upvotes > You hit the point about them wasting time and not hiring juniors. If the bill comes due, technical debt unique to that company can't be solved instantly even with money. **@samiullahpopalzai62** · 6 upvotes > If nobody hires juniors, where exactly are seniors supposed to come from in 5 years? 🤔 **@hardik15** · 4 upvotes > Interesting take. Yes companies need to still hire a Jr. However the major challenges is sustain the employees after training/mentorships. > > Which is not there at all in AI **@johnlowiework** · 4 upvotes > Senior engineers feel a deep sense of human responsibility and accountability when teaching a young person who is publicly struggling to learn. They do not feel that same responsibility toward an LLM. Having a junior on the team forces a level of architectural hygiene, patient communication, and documentation that actually makes the senior engineers better. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Don’t just attend KubeCon \+ CloudNativeCon, Merge Forward your experience\!](https://daily.dev/posts/don-t-just-attend-kubecon-cloudnativecon-merge-forward-your-experience--l0rpp73x8) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Announcing H2 2026 KCDs](https://daily.dev/posts/announcing-h2-2026-kcds-m96goajm1) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Two months of Open Community Groups](https://daily.dev/posts/two-months-of-open-community-groups-asf52zhbs) · CNCF · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [CNCF Unveils Schedule for KubeCon \+ CloudNativeCon Europe 2026](https://daily.dev/posts/cncf-unveils-schedule-for-kubecon-cloudnativecon-europe-2026-ikhcoa5cb) · CNCF · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [CNCF Debuts KubeCon \+ CloudNativeCon Japan 2026 Schedule](https://daily.dev/posts/cncf-debuts-kubecon-cloudnativecon-japan-2026-schedule-xp5pyudub) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#leadership](https://daily.dev/tags/leadership), [#ai-assisted-development](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-assisted-development) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/h3oljtk7n) ```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":"DiscussionForumPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https://daily.dev/posts/h3oljtk7n","headline":"Don’t Hire Juniors to Write Code, Hire Them to Become Seniors","text":"Shared: Don’t Hire Juniors to Write Code, Hire Them to Become Seniors","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/h3oljtk7n","datePublished":"2026-06-02T14:20:16.765Z","dateModified":"2026-06-02T14:31:24.562Z","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Anastasija Uspenski","url":"https://daily.dev/anastasijauspenski","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--0qjvlw0A--/f_auto/v1753975988/avatars/avatar_GoxeKR3O4hyY9jbM3jPBp?_a=BAMClqZW0","interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"EndorseAction"},"userInteractionCount":2180}},"image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--CxzD6vbw--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2005","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":228},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":34}],"sharedContent":{"@type":"WebPage","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/HSCTtEYg3"},"comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"Ah, you mean the thing that we’ve been doing for decades upon decades? There’s only been two instances where we stopped:\n\nThe offshoring wave in the 00’s\nThe rollout of LLMs\n\nBoth dangled the carrot of “cheap code” and essentially not needing to train up junior staff any longer; you just have a few seniors managing a team, whether its a team of people overseas or a team of “agents”.\nBoth are myopic and shortsighted to the health of the industry and, more importantly, the businesses that think they are being efficient.","datePublished":"2026-06-02T15:24:50.129Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/H3OLJTK7N#c-rhE53If4W","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Lars Faye | Confident Coding","url":"https://daily.dev/confidentcoding","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--OGZu5DEc--/f_auto/v1772569630/avatars/avatar_umWZ9aQAng34qk5aaJl2q?_a=BAMAMiiu0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":41}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"You hit the point about them wasting time and not hiring juniors. If the bill comes due, technical debt unique to that company can’t be solved instantly even with money.","datePublished":"2026-06-02T15:47:53.304Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/H3OLJTK7N#c-s0i5MQXFT","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Elmar Chavez","url":"https://daily.dev/elmarchavez","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--7PjH979T--/f_auto/v1780994221/avatars/avatar_bK85rJb2OXXID2LX2wi5y?_a=BAMAMiWQ0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":7}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"If nobody hires juniors, where exactly are seniors supposed to come from in 5 years? 🤔","datePublished":"2026-06-03T11:26:37.993Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/H3OLJTK7N#c-iT9tfDIhZ","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"samiullah popalzai","url":"https://daily.dev/samiullahpopalzai62","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/ACg8ocKNEvQiF2nCDtfuaHOK4vHMR087FlYhfqfokKtIJRkaLb1048cC=s96-c"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":6}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Interesting take. Yes companies need to still hire a Jr. However the major challenges is sustain the employees after training/mentorships.\nWhich is not there at all in AI","datePublished":"2026-06-03T05:38:16.802Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/H3OLJTK7N#c-F502kjMry","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Hardik","url":"https://daily.dev/hardik15","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--O0TOmw4y--/f_auto/v1715772965/public/noProfile"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":4}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Senior engineers feel a deep sense of human responsibility and accountability when teaching a young person who is publicly struggling to learn. They do not feel that same responsibility toward an LLM. Having a junior on the team forces a level of architectural hygiene, patient communication, and documentation that actually makes the senior engineers better.","datePublished":"2026-06-04T06:33:59.827Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/H3OLJTK7N#c-4w3damMRQ","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"John Lowie","url":"https://daily.dev/johnlowiework","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--lzpsRa9H--/f_auto/v1769503171/avatars/avatar_t9yEy2xLiAYWZjkmyUV7G?_a=BAMAMiiu0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":4}}],"isPartOf":{"@type":"WebPage","url":"https://daily.dev/squads/shiftmag","name":"ShiftMag - Insightful Engineering Content"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"ShiftMag - Insightful Engineering Content","item":"https://daily.dev/squads/shiftmag"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Don’t Hire Juniors to Write Code, Hire Them to Become Seniors"}]} ```