"Just as software finished eating the world, zero interest rates ended. Companies optimized for cash and slowed hiring. The market didn't shrink, but stopped growing at the breakneck pace we all expected. The result: a glut of entry level talent groomed for jobs that never materialized. This would explain a more competitive entry level market. But it doesn't explain the entry-level market shrinking, despite overall industry growth. In short: demand for senior talent is rising, but has fallen off a cliff for juniors."
"AI didn't create this trend - there was already a bias for senior talent pre-2022 - but it gave leaders a convenient justification to exacerbate it. In terms of speed, price, and quantity, juniors can't compete with LLMs. Code is now a commodity. It sounds logical because it's true, but it misses the big picture. Here's the core misunderstanding: The job of software engineering is not "writing code"."
For years education and training expanded to meet a perceived developer shortage, producing coding curriculums, college labs, and bootcamps. Interest rate increases prompted companies to optimize cash and slow hiring, halting rapid growth and creating a glut of trained entry-level engineers. Demand shifted toward senior talent while demand for juniors collapsed despite overall industry growth. AI and LLMs accelerated the bias by commoditizing code in speed, price, and quantity. Effective software engineering requires sustaining and evolving interconnected, company-specific systems, not merely translating processes into code. Failing to understand system-specific dependencies causes fragility and operational failures.
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