ETA: summary…
Author describes how agentic coding tools have disincentivized the developer training and mentorship pipeline that the software industry has implicitly relied on to produce seasoned developers, predicting that once the shortage is fully realized it could take years to reverse.
The solution proposed is for managers and senior developers to get ahead of this shortage by foregoing the immediate yet shortlived productivity maximization offered by the agent-multiplied-senior structure in favor of longterm sustainability by deliberately facilitating experience fan-out to juniors.
The methodology proposed is based on a successful nuclear engineering apprenticeship program carried out on active service naval submarines.
A good article, and a great point. At the place I was recently laid off from, even the “juniors” were skipping the basics to go right to running with scissors. My team asked me daily how the things they were working on actually worked with the rest of the system, but apparently they’ll be fine.
And that mistake is even more shortsighted than the systemic failure condition the author focuses on (retaining only seniors and replacing juniors with AI).
Firing your seniors instead also cripples the growth of juniors but, as a bonus, guarantees proliferation of technical debt that tends to scale exponentially with the project. And that’s all before the compounding factor of reliance on coding agents.
Sounds like your former employer insists on learning the hard way. While I’m glad you got out ahead of the shitstorm, I do feel bad for your juniors.