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> He said juniors are usually the most experienced with AI tools, so cutting them makes no sense.

While anyone is free to define words as they so please, most people consider those with the most experience to be seniors. I am pretty sure that has been the message around this all along: Do not cut the seniors. The label you choose isn't significant. Whether you want to call them juniors or seniors, it has always been considered to make no sense to cut those with the most experience.


No, he’s saying that juniors, while having less experience ind development in general have more experience with AI tools. (This may be true broadly, certainly less experienced devs generally, IME, seem more enthusiastic about adopting and relying heavily on AI tooling.)
While, again, anyone can define words as they see fit, most people consider the "junior" and "senior" labels to apply to the activity being conducted, not something off to the side. As the job is to use AI tools, these most experienced people would be considered "seniors" by most. Nobody was ever suggesting that you should cut good help because they're juniors in knitting or dirt biking.
No, the job is to develop software. Using AI tools is one piece of the job. Having less experience with the job overall and more experience with one piece is a thing that happens.
The job is never to develop software. The job is always to solve problems for customers. Developing software is just a tool in the toolbox. As is, increasingly, using AI. As such, it is valuable to have those who are experienced in using AI on staff.

Which is nothing new. It has always been understood that it is valuable to have experienced people on board. The "cut the juniors" talk has never been about letting those who offer value go. Trying to frame it as being about those who offer experiential value — just not in the places you've arbitrary chosen — is absurd.

> As the job is to use AI tools

Aside from the absurdity of this claim, consider how many years of experience a "senior" is typically expected to have, and then consider how long even ChatGPT has been available to the public, never mind SOTA coding agents.

> consider how many years of experience a "senior" is typically expected to have

That entirely depends on what the experience is towards. If it is something like farming where you only get to experience a different scenario once per year due to worldly constraints, then one would expect many years — decades, even — before considering someone "senior".

But when the domain allows experiencing a new scenario every handful of milliseconds, you can shorten that tremendously. In that case, a couple of years is more than enough time to become a "senior" even with only a modicum of attention given to it. If you haven't "seen it all" after a couple of years in that kind of environment, you're never going to become "senior" as you are hardly engaging with it at all.

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