The Bet On Juniors Just Got Better
December 17, 2025
Junior developer—obsolete accessory or valuable investment? How does the genie change the analysis?
Folks are taking knee-jerk action around the advent of AI—slowing hiring, firing all the juniors, cancelling internship programs. Instead, let’s think about this a second.
The standard model says junior developers are expensive. You pay senior salaries for negative productivity while they learn. They ask questions. They break things. They need code review. In an augmented development world, the difference between juniors & seniors is just too large & the cost of the juniors just too high.Wrongo. That’s backwards. Here’s why.
Kanban Beck is around in the world of software engineering, the originator of XP (Extreme Programming) and very well known and highly regarded when it comes to design patterns
Here he addresses the issue that has been of concern to many people, and that is, what impact will AI have on junior developers? Will they simply not exist anymore? And then, will we ever get senior developers if we haven’t got any new junior developers? Ken has a different take, and I think it’s well worth considering.
