alt Hacker NewsIn 2026 a Junior Engineer is just Claude Code with a bad UI, higher latency, and extra steps. Literally.
I wouldn't even considering hiring a junior engineer at this point. The ROI was already barely breakeven for any but the top of the top junior engineers as they are likely to move on before they are meaningfully contributing.
With AI in the mix the ROI for Junior Engineers is strongly negative for 2 reasons:
1. (obvious) I can just have Claude Code do the work a junior engineer would have done with faster turnaround and generally better results.
2. (less obvious) Junior engineers are going to just turn around and use Claude Code, so now I'm talking to an AI and playing the telephone game, and the Junior engineer isn't going to learn much if anything in the process.
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People don't want to hear this, but it's true, especially the part about the junior developer just using Claude Code themselves.
We may still be too early on the curve of AI usage for AI to be the major driver of the labor market changes, but we also have no clue about what to do about it.
Often the conversation puts "Using AI ourself" at odds with "Delegating to a junior developer", but the junior developer is going to be using AI just like the rest of us further bringing into question the value of junior developers (and eventually senior engineers).
What really is the next step? (Rhetorical question since nobody knows)
The 2nd is very true
Can I add:
1a. If you train it enough, one day you'll be able to trust that it's going to be able to execute what you want correctly, and you don't have to meticulously go through each line to find any issues.
to your list of arguments?
Because just like a junior human, training Claude will make it a capable senior developer, right...?
/S because this is the Internet.