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Comment by geremiiah | Hacker News Reader

How do we know it's "AI", and not just the fact that CS has gotten too popular and there's now a glut of new graduates?

https://cra.org/crn/2025/08/infographic-computing-bachelors-...

EDIT: it's also hard to account for the fact that job position titles aren't very consistent over time and I know quite a few new grads who got "senior" job positions

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Even before AI have noticed really small to mid size companies not having enough budget to hire junior developers that they know they'd have to train from the ground up. They'd rather take chances on senior developers and/or contractors.

I think there's a misconception that junior devs require all that much training compared to an experienced engineer. I rarely have all that many relevant skills when starting a new job. I have to learn their processes/tools/etc from reading the docs. So I'm probably coming in at like 20% better than junior.

Junior devs will have an easier time finding jobs in positions that operate in niche industries, because they offer onboarding for everyone.

> I have to learn their processes/tools/etc from reading the docs. > So I'm probably coming in at like 20% better than junior.

There are firms that take that to heart, and there is indeed a lot of truth in it. A large amount of skills and knowledge just aren't transferable when switching jobs. But I think it's not hard to create more than 20% of the value. And even if it really is 20% of the value, the profit generated from the work might actually be more than the salary gap anyway, and the 1-year growth curve might be faster for a senior than a junior.

If you’re only coming in at 20% above a complete junior you’re a slightly experienced junior elsewhere. You’re telling me your experience dealing with SDLC, incidents, abstractions, ubiquitous technologies like databases, CI/CD, k8s, etc only put you 20% ahead? Thats an absurd undersell.

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