Bet on Juniors

Today I stumbled upon an HN article "One year of keeping a tada list" and got looped into an interesting exchange. For context, the OP was showcasing his approach to celebrating accomplishments daily which is something most people don't do. One of the "tada" items was painting and in the comments someone was surprised that anyone would find the drive to make watercolor paintings in the age of AI.

I'm not going to lie, that was a disappointing comment. We really can't let "AI can do this" take over the desire to cultivate your craft (either in your work or as a hobby). Most importantly, if we start giving in to AI taking over and giving up on learning how to do it ourselves, we won't develop any understanding for the craft.

I believe an AI in the hands of a Senior Engineer will yield better results than in the hands of a Junior Engineer. That's because Seniors spent a considerably larger amount of time on the craft. We can't expect Juniors to deliver at a Senior's level just because they can now use AI.

This is a reason why we should continue to invest in Junior Engineers. AI should empower them to learn in a way that fits their needs but should not replace their work or thinking. If we stop nurturing the craft, we will end up with unskilled contributors who cannot distinguish between good and bad. Being able to delegate small changes or bug fixes to an agent, doesn't mean we should deprive a Junior engineer from the opportunity to learn more about the project they're in. Those are what's helpful for onboarding.

If you've been in your industry for a while, find out how to adapt onboarding in the age of AI. How can we use it to increase quality and not just quantity? How can we reduce the timeline to grow tomorrow's Senior engineers? When I look around, it seems like I'm not alone thinking this way. In a recent article from the Pragmatic Engineer, this quote stood out:

Personally, the lack of impact by AI coding tools to date upon the speed of development and quality of software, is amusing to me. If I take the apps I use, websites I visit, and services I access via software, I don’t see signs of faster iteration, higher quality, and fewer bugs since AI started shaking up the tech industry.

Don't let AI fool you into thinking you can now save costs, increase quality, and deliver faster. You need people who can solve problems that are not there yet, you need the Seniors of tomorrow who can harness the tools. Bet on Juniors now so that you can sustain your project/company/org tomorrow and not find yourself submerged under a sea of inexplicable AI work.

Note: I decided to remove the "Thoughts" section moving forward. It felt unnecessarily repetitive and overkill for short-form posts.