--- title: The Death of the Junior Developer | daily.dev description: The rise of AI tools like ChatGPT is reshaping the software development landscape, significantly impacting junior developer roles. These language models are... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-death-of-the-junior-developer-zqzft20xg twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The Death of the Junior Developer | daily.dev og:description: The rise of AI tools like ChatGPT is reshaping the software development landscape, significantly impacting junior developer roles. These language models are... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-death-of-the-junior-developer-zqzft20xg og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Zqzft20xG.png og:image:alt: The Death of the Junior Developer 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. # The Death of the Junior Developer **[Lobsters](https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters)** · 21 min read · 973 upvotes · 107 comments ## Summary The rise of AI tools like ChatGPT is reshaping the software development landscape, significantly impacting junior developer roles. These language models are becoming highly competent at tasks traditionally reserved for junior programmers, lawyers, and writers, raising concerns about job displacement. Senior developers are adapting by using AI to accelerate their work, shifting into roles that focus on prompt engineering and code review. The article urges junior developers to upskill rapidly and stay ahead of these technological advancements to remain competitive in the evolving job market. ## 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. **@jjjjjjj** · 108 upvotes > I recently learned to code and would consider myself a "junior developer." I've been using tools like Claude to build projects that might otherwise be unfeasible. Building real stuff is the most realistic way I see now for junior developers to "get into" software development. **@cloudshock** · 83 upvotes > What the.. this article. *shakes head* > > If you are studying Computer Science and read this, please stay in school. LLM models are trained on existing code, which has bugs. There will always be bugs to fix. > > There's been a shift away from hiring juniors but not because of AI. Everyone wanted seniors because they erroneously believe that they can get to market faster by shunning less experienced developers. > > Building software is more solving problems than writing code. Understand the problem, formulate a solution. Current gen LLMs generally regurgitate solutions based on prior examples, and... **@cjdonato** · 23 upvotes > This headline might discourage people from learning software development **@marlondev** · 22 upvotes > To all junior dev's and students still in school, please don't be discouraged by posts like these. It all depends on what you can bring to the table, with or without AI. If you can deliver the best work, you will get a job. It's all in your own hands. Just don't give up and get better everyday and you will get there. **@jsnelders** · 19 upvotes > Steve Yegge should have run this article through an LLM first, asking it to re-write it and "get to the point quicker". I got so bored reading this rambling I lost his point multiple times. > > I tried GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio & VS Code for a few months, working on .NET and VueJS projects. I spent more time correcting the output than using it. I trust it less than any graduate developer I've worked it. > Part of the problem is people seem to automatically "trust" LLM output. With a junior developer we know their work needs to be reviewed as we build trust in their ability. LLM output needs... ## 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: [#ai](https://daily.dev/tags/ai), [#machine-learning](https://daily.dev/tags/machine-learning), [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-death-of-the-junior-developer-zqzft20xg) ```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":"The Death of the Junior Developer","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-death-of-the-junior-developer-zqzft20xg","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-death-of-the-junior-developer-zqzft20xg"},"datePublished":"2024-06-27T04:04:34.546Z","dateModified":"2024-08-23T15:45:55.878Z","description":"The rise of AI tools like ChatGPT is reshaping the software development landscape, significantly impacting junior developer roles. 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Building real stuff is the most realistic way I see now for junior developers to “get into” software development.","datePublished":"2024-07-01T23:00:47.369Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/Zqzft20xG#c-WulnSxJc5","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"J","url":"https://daily.dev/jjjjjjj","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--O0TOmw4y--/f_auto/v1715772965/public/noProfile"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":108}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"What the… this article. shakes head\nIf you are studying Computer Science and read this, please stay in school. LLM models are trained on existing code, which has bugs. There will always be bugs to fix.\nThere’s been a shift away from hiring juniors but not because of AI. Everyone wanted seniors because they erroneously believe that they can get to market faster by shunning less experienced developers.\nBuilding software is more solving problems than writing code. Understand the problem, formulate a solution. Current gen LLMs generally regurgitate solutions based on prior examples, and preform poorly in novel situations.\nAnd that’s OK. Focus on learning the theory. Build experience knowing when, where and how to apply that theory. Perfect how to prompt the system and let the algorithm write the grunt code.","datePublished":"2024-07-02T19:30:50.295Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/Zqzft20xG#c-DJEXHFyLn","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"cloudshock.dev","url":"https://daily.dev/cloudshock","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--WQFzRiGA--/f_auto/v1753297233/avatars/avatar_IkggSoPl7cfNHlTZhnuZD?_a=BAMClqZW0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":83}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"This headline might discourage people from learning software development","datePublished":"2024-07-03T08:05:48.864Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/Zqzft20xG#c-xLK7GRcts","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Cristina Jean Donato","url":"https://daily.dev/cjdonato","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a-/AOh14GjZbSaZpy8sZAzQwlUjzY9SyI4k-aEeoMtdyNm6=s100"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":23}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"To all junior dev’s and students still in school, please don’t be discouraged by posts like these. It all depends on what you can bring to the table, with or without AI. If you can deliver the best work, you will get a job. It’s all in your own hands. Just don’t give up and get better everyday and you will get there.","datePublished":"2024-07-06T23:10:49.753Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/Zqzft20xG#c-TRWNFeswi","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"marlon","url":"https://daily.dev/marlondev","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/108157984?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":22}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Steve Yegge should have run this article through an LLM first, asking it to re-write it and “get to the point quicker”. I got so bored reading this rambling I lost his point multiple times.\nI tried GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio & VS Code for a few months, working on .NET and VueJS projects. I spent more time correcting the output than using it. I trust it less than any graduate developer I’ve worked it.\nPart of the problem is people seem to automatically “trust” LLM output. With a junior developer we know their work needs to be reviewed as we build trust in their ability. LLM output needs to be treated the same way, except we must ALWAYS assume to be wrong - forever - because it will never “learn”. They’re just statistical regurgitation machines, trained on slop, that could at any time randomly produce “incorrect” output and we must always be watching for it.\nI’ve been a professional business software developer for over 20 years. 90% of my job has been NOT writing code.\nMy job is talking with people to understand requirements. Translating requirements into design and architecture. Learning new technologies. Reading existing code. Researching errors or why things don’t work as expected. Figuring out how to modify existing code to fit new requirements. Debugging and inspecting data flows in code. Testing systems. And then finally there’s a bit of code writing.\nI’m calling BS on AI taking programming jobs. My prediction is we’re going to look back at this period of GenAI hype in 5 years time and wonder how the heck we all ended up in a collective delusion, buying into the hype without bothering to ask a few fundamental questions about the technology and what it’s actually capable of. Oh wait, we’re software developers - buying into hype is how we keep our resumes relevant…","datePublished":"2024-07-05T01:27:26.377Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/Zqzft20xG#c-P99T89FR4","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Jason","url":"https://daily.dev/jsnelders","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--O0TOmw4y--/f_auto/v1715772965/public/noProfile"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":19}}]} ```