Expertise in the Age of AI
The article discusses the evolving landscape of hiring junior engineers in the age of AI. It highlights the increasing value of senior engineers who possess the necessary coding intuition to effectively utilize coding agents. As the job market shifts, only a select few junior engineers are deemed worth hiring, leading to fierce competition among top companies for this talent.
- ▪Junior engineers are becoming less desirable due to high costs and the effectiveness of senior engineers.
- ▪The job market reflects a growing gap in computing intuition between senior and junior engineers.
- ▪Only a small number of junior engineers are expected to reach the necessary coding intuition within a few years of graduation.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Expertise in the Age of AI 2026-05-12 Tagged: llms Does it make sense to hire junior engineers in the age of coding agents? Junior engineers are expensive, both in salary and seniors engineers’ time. This cost was partially recouped through code contributions, but today, it’s more effective to directly maximize the output of your senior engineers. The hiring market reflects this trend: senior engineers have an easy time finding jobs, while fresh CS grads are having their worst years ever. And yet, OpenAI, Anthropic, and many top companies continue to compete fiercely for junior talent. What’s going on? In this essay, I’ll explore the changing nature of expertise in the age of AI.
…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Moderndescartes.
Discussion
0 commentsMore from Moderndescartes
