I don’t understand this logic. If I’m being honest, the most productive people with AI on my team are the two youngest. They don’t have product wisdom, yes, but the gap is so noticeable that I pushed my manager to forego the full-time work experience requirement that we have always had so that new hires don’t even know the old way of working and can just reframe the field in terms of AI.

AI is the biggest threat in over a generation to seniors who aren’t investing in keeping up. Managers without an instinct for AI are an endangered species as well.

But the AI transition is different than old technological changes in that you don't really have to learn anything. You don't have to memorize keywords and new concepts like you'd have to for, say, a new JavaScript framework. If you don't know something about AI, you can just ask it and it will tell you.

Basically the only hard part for old people is getting USED to using AI. Some haven't, but it only takes a few weeks to do. After that, experience and taste really comes in handy and that can't be developed overnight.

Depends on the nature of the work. In highly specialised work the junior would train with a senior while the senior can offload the easier work.

Now the senior can use the AI instead of dealing with a junior.

Plus the biggest danger I’ve seen numerous times is the junior engineer can’t easily tell if the AI is wrong.

They either accept it as correct or spend more time trying to fix AI output with an AI in an area they don’t have the skills for.

On the contrary, new generations are skipping the fundamentals and using AI instead.

Seniors will become more valuable as that knowledge is lost and AI isn't capable of full replacenent.

I use AI daily and it takes almost no extra brain power to use.

Same here. The absolute star in my team is the youngest. But! I think what's happening is that the distribution in this age group has shifted. Essentially the absolute best (high IQ, super ambitious, great communicator, cracked builder types) are now even better positioned than ever before. But the majority of mass in this age category now suffers, i.e. everyone that's "good" or "very good" but not exceptional/brilliant.

I think the problem is evaluation. They can't tell who the good juniors are with respect to the new skills that they are looking for, so they go for experience instead. It doesn't seem sustainable though for obvious reasons.

> AI is the biggest threat in over a generation to seniors who aren’t investing in keeping up. Managers without an instinct for AI are an endangered species as well.

New tech has always been the biggest threat to seniors who aren't investing in keeping up.

If you find a proper senior dev - it will be like 10 or more of that junior you described.

Because you can’t shortcut experience. And AI multiplies that.

I’ve seen what ai-focused good senior dev can do and it is scary.

The juniors I have seen don't even try to understand anymore what they are building. They don't understand the product, they don't understand the technology. So everything AI is building for them is nonsense. "Reviewing" it is impossible. Some of them think they are being extra clever having Claude process review comments for them. Even if you hire one, this way they are out the door within the month.