Senior Engineers Are the Next DRAM Shortage
AI has absorbed the entry-level work that used to train junior engineers, so companies are quietly shutting down the only pipeline that produces senior talent. The author argues this creates a coming shortage exactly like the recent DRAM crisis: demand for seniors who can orchestrate fleets of agents is exploding, but supply takes years to build. The fix is to treat mentoring as a hedge, fanning seniors out through juniors rather than strapping nine agents to each one.
We’re about to stop making seniors because the thing that used to pay for making them just got automated.
- daymanstep
Why does this article read like it's AI-generated?
- saulpw
So let's think one more step out. You're supposed to train your juniors so that you have seniors when everyone else is scrambling. But when everyone is scrambling, the biggest and most-funded/most-profitable companies will be offering a lot more money than you can afford to pay your now-senior devs. Now I suppose you think those former juniors would be so grateful that you trained them, that they would be loyal to your company and continue working for what you're paying them, right? ...right?
- benoau
I think these thoughts on what happens without the junior-to-senior pipeline have been circulating for a while, long before the conversation even shifted to agents.
What it boils down to is AI staying just bad enough to always need a developer to make the important calls. Meanwhile every effort is being made to improve it. If there's a ceiling that preserves our jobs and the value we bring to companies it will be a bitter pill to swallow for everyone else.