Will AI Take Junior Dev Jobs and Push Us to Senior Mode?

Coding's Wild Ride and a Big Question

Coding is a rabbit hole. So encompassing—you dive in, get lost, problem-solve, break stuff, and it’s a freaking blast. Hours vanish, and you’re grinning like an idiot because you just fixed a bug or torched a new one. But lately? I’m barely coding. AI’s snatched the wheel, and I’m just pointing where to go—high-level stuff, less grinding. It’s wild, and I’m not sure what I’m doing half the time lol.

It’s got me thinking: will AI kill off junior devs while turning more of us into seniors? I’m not some oracle—this is just me watching the chaos unfold, poking at it with a stick. Let’s dig in.

AI’s Taking the Junior Work

Back in the day—okay, like a few months ago—I was grinding out basic scripts, trial-and-error loops, Stack Overflow on speed dial. Painful, but you learn. Now? I’m instructing Cursor to do it. It’s like I’ve got a junior dev who doesn’t sleep, doesn’t bitch, and doesn’t need coffee breaks. File manipulation? Done. Bug fixes? Handled. Two days ago, I didn’t even know testing was a thing I should care about—now Cursor’s spitting out unit tests faster than I could google “how to write a unit test.”

Here’s the observation: junior devs do the basic work. Writing small scripts, learning the ropes. AI’s doing that now. If a model can handle scripts and tests without complaining, what’s left for newbies to practice on? I’m not saying juniors are done—yet—but things are changing, and it’s hard not to see it.

Why AI Might Mint More Senior Devs

Here’s the kicker—AI’s not just taking over, it’s pushing me up. I feel like a senior dev already. Not because I’m some genius (lol, far from it), but because I’m not stuck on the small stuff anymore—I’m thinking bigger. AI’s letting me skip the grind and go straight to orchestrating.

I know a bit of coding—enough to tell the model what I want and how to get there. But AI’s teaching me stuff I’d never bother with otherwise. Testing’s a big one. Two days ago, I realized it’s useful—unit tests, bulk runs, simulating scenarios like file ops to make sure your script doesn’t crap out. I get how it’s supposed to work, could set it up if I had a week and a gallon of coffee. But Cursor? It looks at my code and bangs out perfect unit tests in seconds—non-destructive, iterating until they’re right. I’m not coding that—I’m directing it.

That’s the observation: AI’s pushing us to senior mode fast. You don’t need to write every line anymore; you need to know what you want and how to steer the tools. It’s what seniors do—high-level strategy, not slogging through syntax. More devs could skip the junior phase and land in architect territory if they use this. AI’s not just a tool—it’s shoving us up the ladder, turning us into seniors quicker than we’d get there alone.

The Big Challenge: Code Quality Ain’t There Yet

But here’s the biggest challenge I see: the quality of the code. If you haven’t been coding long, something like Sonnet 3.7 sounds great—it’s fast, it’s smart. But it’s got a tendency to overengineer stuff and churn out things that aren’t even needed. I’ve found myself trusting it too much, and what happens? I end up with code I delete later. It’s tempting—ask it to build something, and it sounds like it’ll pick the best design every time. Reality? Not even close.

This is where your junior skills kick in. You’ve got to dig back into the code, spot where it went wrong, and fix the bad choices. You can’t just rush in and let AI vibe-code your way through—that’ll leave you with more problems than you started with. Instead, I’m using it slower, step-by-step, to build the next thing I already know how it’s supposed to look. Trusting it blindly? That’s a mistake for now. Doesn’t mean it won’t get better—AI’s advancing like mad—but today, you’re still the one keeping it in check.

Seniors Could Rule the Async Future

Senior devs might get the biggest win someday. Right now, I’m using Cursor for basic stuff—small scripts, tests, fixes. It’s helpful, but it’s got limits. Tokens, those AI credits, used to stop me cold. Couple months back, I’d burn through 500 premium requests in days, then wait forever in the slow queue. Now? Prices are dropping, and I can use it most of the month without much delay. Still, the tools aren’t async yet. It’s “YOLO” mode—code generation and execution on autopilot, capped at 25 tools. That’s changing soon.

Here’s the dream outcome: most coding tasks split into sync or async work—sync’s what you do yourself, async’s what you delegate. As models get better, we’ll delegate more to async. Imagine multiple agents working async on different parts of the code—one’s redesigning the landing page, another’s setting up Clerk auth, a third’s building backend endpoints and websockets—all in the background while I work on something else. They commit to GitHub, fix conflicts, push to master. This isn’t happening now—it’s where AI coding could go. Eric Zakariasson said it on X: when Cursor launched, it was all sync work, but 3.7’s power needed new tweaks to show what’s possible. Seniors with async agents someday? They’d be running the show, directing a team of AI while barely touching the keyboard.

Observing the Horizon

So yeah, AI might take the junior gig—why hire one when a model can do the basics? But it’s making more seniors, fast. You don’t need a decade of scars to act like a vet anymore—AI’s handing out shortcuts, even if you’ve got to watch the code quality for now. And the real winners? Seasoned devs who could turn ideas into reality with async agents humming in the background—if we get there.

I’m just a guy poking at this mess, not some prophet. But the signs are there—X posts about async agents, my own ride with Cursor, the way it’s flipping how I work. The future’s not replacing us—it’s amplifying the ones who know how to steer, as long as we don’t let it overengineer us into a mess. What do you think? Am I off the rails, or is this where it’s heading?