This meant that, in my example and given the same scope, one junior person with AI could easily handle multiple projects in 2026 that would require 2 or more medior people as recently as 2025. The only reasons for involving multiple people were time, learning opportunity, or increased scope - not skill.
If we paused AI progress today, and ignored the option of adding agents recursively, the current state of things still provides several alternatives to any honest & informed manager:
- Altruistic or optimistic: Keep all current jobs, and move the scope until there's a need and/or funds to hire more devs;
- Pragmatic or neutral: Keep the current jobs, but not hire anyone else as long as the scope is balanced against time (our current situation);
- Cold or pessimistic: Lay off anyone who doesn't fit the leanest model at current (or acceptably lower/higher) scope.
I don't know whether this translates into a "job's crisis", and I can only hope it won't. But hope is not a career strategy, scope is not inexhaustible, and the political, economic and social pressures are quite strong even if you removed AI.