In 1981, a new wave band called The Buggles hit MTV’s airwaves with the first video ever broadcast on the network: “Video Killed the Radio Star.” The song raised concerns about tech such as VCRs disrupting older forms of media.
Today, artificial intelligence is transforming the business world in a similar way, and it generates questions like “Did AI kill the junior software developer”? Is AI threatening career opportunities for entry-level software developers?
After all, entry-level tech hiring dropped by 73.3% from 2024 into early 2025, according to Ravio’s 2025 Tech Job Market Report. The report noted that companies are hiring engineers that can use AI from the start rather than training junior developers. In addition, Stanford University researchers released a paper last year highlighting how workers ages 22 to 25 in accounting and software development have experienced a 13% drop in employment since 2022 due to AI.
However, experts still say not to worry about AI taking junior jobs away. In fact, AI has impacted but not replaced roles such as the help desk technician, cyber engineer and cybersecurity analyst.
In addition, Seth Robinson, vice president of industry research at the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), a provider of IT training and certifications, says he has seen dramatic increases in software development job postings in 2026, and these core skills are still in demand.
“We certainly don't see very much evidence at all of companies hiring somebody that has AI skills that can perform the function of a software developer or a data analyst without having those core skills,” said Seth Robinson, vice president of industry research at CompTIA. “You've got to have that foundation first.”
Other experts had a similar view:
Kennith Jackson, senior vice president for AI solutions & operations at Andela, a tech talent marketplace with more than 150,000 senior technologists across 135 countries, said that regardless of level, those tech professionals that engage deeply with AI to solve business problems will remain relevant in the field.
“I understand that boards and CEOs are under a lot of pressure to take advantage of the efficiencies of AI,” Jackson said. “We're not necessarily seeing the enterprises we're serving as taking full advantage of it, and I think we're still in the early innings of being able to see huge productivity gains from AI.”
In a podcast, Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman had the strongest words on AI replacing junior developers: He called it “one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.” He elaborated on that point in a 2025 interview with Wired. He explained that the theory does not work because many junior employees are the most experienced with AI tools and they are also the least expensive. He added that AI will “definitely create more jobs than it removes at first.”
Pressure from the Top Down to Use AI
Kinjal Vaishnav, site reliability engineer 3 at Oracle, said junior developer roles still exist amid AI, but they are under pressure.
“The lower rung hasn’t disappeared,” Vaishnav said. “It’s been stress-tested. The engineers thriving early-career are the ones using AI to go deeper — not just faster.”
Jackson notes that board members and CEOs are also facing pressure to get more done with less resources. That pressure cascades down to developers and knowledge workers to use AI tools, he said.
However, use of AI-generated code is causing technical debt to accumulate, according to Jackson, as the AI leads to errors that need fixing later. For example, organizations are shipping content product code without understanding the context of the code.
Therefore, junior developers still need to understand, read and write code, because people need to check the work of the AI coding assistant, he stressed.
“That is the role of the human is that oversight, that double-checking and deeply understanding,” Jackson said.
The Path of the Junior Software Developer in the Age of AI
With AI now part of a software developer’s toolbox, junior developers need to learn which type of AI to use, such as retrieval-augmented generation versus agentic search capability, according to Jackson.
“There are reasons to use either one, and I think a junior developer is now in many ways expected to exercise that judgment and technical taste,” Jackson said.
Vaishnav also described a need for tech professionals to continue developing judgment when using AI so they know when it is wrong.
“And it is wrong, regularly,” she said.
Jackson noted that developers are in a conundrum to learn these foundational coding skills quickly. That includes being able to make edits and reprompt.
“You might not have to write a ton of code yourself, but you need to be able to deeply understand it, so that is a skill that developers need,” Jackson said.
AI companies are providing AI code like Claude free or at a discount to help train developers, according to Jackson.
“A lot of them are doing internships with companies where they're building agents,” Jackson said.
Junior Software Engineering Roles and Mentoring
With a need for junior software engineers to learn AI skills that a senior developer would ordinarily learn, mentorship will play a role in getting junior developers the training they need, Jackson noted.
That includes “systems thinking” and knowledge of how to use AI properly. He noted that three years into a career a software developer would develop the exposure to systems thinking for AI. He recommends that organizations and higher education develop programs to give budding tech professionals hands-on experience with AI and to establish mentorship programs.
Bootcamps such as Andela provide this training and the necessary experiential learning, which consists of “community-built” challenges.
“Because the tools are moving so quickly, we need to be constantly assessing people, finding their knowledge gaps, and giving them training to upskill,” Jackson said. “That's how we're getting away from the more rigid requirements of the old software engineering ladder.”
The missed rungs include basic coding and going for live coding of SaaS platforms instead, according to Jackson.
Software developers learning AI tools will need an understanding of how these tools are useful to add value to the business and improve business outcomes, Jackson stressed.
Overall, Jackson sees an increase in the number of entry-level jobs, and organizations need to be clear on the responsibilities that entry-level job descriptions will entail.
“I think we're going to see an increase in demand for all folks who can apply AI, not just use to create a bunch of code but actually apply it against business challenges in a way that doesn't create massive technical debt,” Jackson said.
The danger is overlooking junior developers that have the competency to use AI tools but do not have the experience, Jackson said.
“It's about finding people with the right competency and then giving them the experience in a way that is responsible and doesn't put the business at risk,” Jackson said.
And the bottom line, according to Oracle’s Vaishnav:
“AI can handle portions of the job. It doesn’t grow into a senior engineer,” she said. “You can’t promote a chatbot.”
Vaishnav added that cutting junior roles would mean a lack of senior leaders down the line.
“If we keep cutting junior roles today, we won’t have seniors in 10 years,” she said. “We’re eating the seed corn and calling it efficiency.”
