The Junior Hiring Crisis

Causes of the junior hiring crunch

• Many argue the problem long predates LLMs: hiring bias toward “experienced only,” post‑ZIRP correction, pandemic over‑hiring, offshoring, and general oversupply of CS grads and bootcampers.
• Several see a structural “seniorification” trend: companies want black‑box teams that ship without hand‑holding, not an apprenticeship pipeline.
• Others blame universities: 4‑year CS programs increasingly fail to produce work‑ready grads; some report juniors who don’t know Git, basic CS, or how to debug.

Role of AI

• There’s broad agreement that AI automates much of the “annoying, easy” work that traditionally trained juniors (bugfixes, glue code, tests, boilerplate).
• Some see this as removing the “apprenticeship ladder”: AI now does the tasks that formerly justified a junior headcount, while seniors are merely augmented.
• Others push back: junior hiring started collapsing before AI was useful; AI is more an excuse layered on top of macro and management trends.
• Strong concern about “AI slop”: juniors (and some seniors) blindly pasting LLM output, not understanding it, and neutering tests; reviewers feel they’re “collaborating with a model via a human proxy.”

Mentorship, juniors, and seniors

• Several seniors report miserable experiences mentoring juniors they see as overconfident, resistant to feedback, or outsourcing everything to AI.
• Others argue the real issue is companies refusing to invest in training and rewarding seniors for individual output rather than mentoring.
• There’s debate over intergenerational respect: some say today’s juniors dismiss older engineers (“OK boomer”); others say most negative interactions are seniors’ fault.

Broken hiring & compensation incentives

• Hiring is described as “barely better than random”: ATS filters, 5+ rounds of trivia/LeetCode, endless take‑homes, then ghosting.
• Networking and referrals dominate; many report virtually all real offers coming via personal connections or recruiters, not cold applications.
• Firms prefer paying a premium for someone already trained rather than funding training then losing juniors to job‑hopping and higher offers.
• Junior comp in US hubs (~$100k+) is seen by some as uneconomical versus AI or offshore talent; others point out local rents make lower salaries unrealistic.

Networking and “people skills”

• The article’s emphasis on networking gets mixed reactions: some see it as now essential; others see it as selecting for extroverts and “politicians” over technicians.
• Practical advice emerges: build a visible portfolio, share work online, attend meetups/alumni events, maintain ties with professors, former coworkers, and prior internships.

Experiences from the trenches

• Numerous anecdotes from grads applying to hundreds or thousands of roles with only automated rejections, including one CS grad resorting to sex work.
• Mid‑career engineers also struggle: several with 10–20+ years experience report that even they now mostly land jobs via referrals, not open postings.

Long‑term consequences and open questions

• Widespread fear of a future skills hole: if few juniors are trained today, who becomes senior in 5–10 years?
• Some think AI will fill that gap as it improves; others warn of a coming “talent crisis” when current seniors retire.
• There’s no consensus solution: suggestions range from lowering junior salaries, rebuilding apprenticeship‑style programs, changing interview practices, to broader political/economic reforms.