How much time will someone realistically dedicate to this if they need to have a separate day job? How good will they get without mentors? How much complexity will they really need to manage without the bureaucracy of an organization?

Are senior software engineers of the future going to be waiting tables along side actors for the first 10+ years of their adult life, working on side projects on nights and weekends, hoping to one day jump straight to a senior position in a large company?

The questions I instinctively ask myself when looking at a new problem, having worked in an enterprise environment for 20 years, are much different than what I’d be asking having just worked on personal projects. Most of the technology I’ve had access to isn’t something a solo hobbyist dev will ever touch. Most of the questions I’m asking are influenced by having that access, along with some of the personalities I’ve had to deal with.

How will people get that kind of experience?

There is also the big issue of people not knowing what to build. When a person gets a job, they no long need to come up with their own ideas. Or they generate ideas based on the needs of the environment they’re in. In the context of my job, I have no shortage of ideas. For solo projects, I often draw a blank. The world doesn’t need a hundred more todo apps.

>How much time will someone realistically dedicate to this if they need to have a separate day job?

Typically parents subsidize the living of their children while they are still learning.

>Most of the technology I’ve had access to isn’t something a solo hobbyist dev will ever touch

That's already true today. Most developers are react developers. If hired for something else they will have to pick that up on the job. When you have niche tech stacks you already will need to compromise on the kind of experience people have. With AI having exact experience in the technology is not that necessary since AI can handle most of it.

Parents can only subsidize children if they are doing well themselves, most aren’t.

That “learning” phase used to end in the 18-25 range. Getting rid of juniors and making someone get enough experience on side projects to be considered a senior would take considerably longer. Exactly how long are parents supposed to be subsidizing their children’s living expenses? How can the parents afford to retire when they still have dependents? And all of this is built on the hope that the kid will actually land that job in 10 years? That feels like a bad bet. What happens if they fail? Not a big deal when the kid is 27, but a pretty big deal at 40 when they have no other marketable skills and have been living off their parents.

The difference is there are juniors getting familiar with those enterprise products today. If they go away, they will step into it as senior people and be unprepared. It’s not just about the syntax of a different language, I’m talking more about dealing with things like Active Directory, leveraging ITSM systems effectively, reporting, metrics, how to communicate with leadership, how to deal with audits. AI might help with some of this, but not all of it. For someone without experience with it, they don’t know what they don’t know… in which case the AI won’t help at all.

I even see this when dealing with people from a small company being acquired by a larger company. They don’t know what is available to them or the systems that are in place, and they don’t even know enough to ask. Someone from another large company knows to ask about these things, because they have that experience.

>Not a big deal when the kid is 27, but a pretty big deal at 40 when they have no other marketable skills

Let's say someone started building products since 10. By the time they were 27 they would have 17 years of experience. By 40 they would have 30 years of experience. That is more than enough time for one to gain a marketable skill that people are looking for.

>they don’t know what they don’t know… in which case the AI won’t help at all.

I think you are underestimating at AI's ability to sus out such unknown unknowns.

You’re expecting kids in 5th grade to pick a career and start building focused projects on par with the experience one would get in a full time position at a company?

This can’t be serious?

How does AI solve the unknown unknowns problem?

Even if someone may hear about potential problems or good ideas from AI, without experience very few of those things are incorporated into how a person operates. They have never felt the pain of missing those steps.

There are plenty of signs at the pool that say not to run, but kids still try to run… until they fall and hurt themselves. That’s how they learn to respect the sign.

>You’re expecting kids in 5th grade to pick a career and start building focused projects on par with the experience one would get in a full time position at a company?

Yes, I am. Do not underestimate how smart 5th graders are and what they can do with all of the free time they have.

>How does AI solve the unknown unknowns problem?

You can ask it what it thinks you should know. You can ask it for what pitfalls to look out for. You can ask it to roleplay to play out scenarios and get practice with them. I think such practice is enough to get them to a state of being hirable.

I’m sure there are some exceptional 5th graders doing amazing things. The number that will keep that same interest into adulthood is exceptionally low. Kids also need a chance to be kids. Expecting them to be heads down working on their career ambitions at 10 is dystopian.

It’s not about just getting hired. It’s about being effective once hired. I expect a senior to have preferences and opinions, informed by experience, on how things can and should run… while also being able to adapt to the local culture. We should be able to debate ideas in real time without having to run to the LLM to read the next reply. If that’s all someone is bringing to the table, just tell the team to use an LLM during brainstorming sessions.