Did the junior dev die? No — the definition changed.

The very definition of "junior dev" needs rethinking. In practice that role, as conceived in the last 20 years, is fading.

Experience + product sense + some technical depth becomes extremely powerful when amplified by AI. The senior doesn't deliver more because they write better code — they deliver more because they understand the system, the project context, the trade-offs and the product needs, and can steer the AI in that direction.

The new training

Training juniors to spend years fixing bugs or implementing isolated tasks loses meaning when an AI does that in minutes. Training has to migrate toward:

• Deeply understanding the user's problem.
• Understanding the product and its goals.
• Identifying incremental improvements to the system.
• Structuring good solutions and knowing how to steer AI tools to implement them.

A junior who starts by learning to think in product and system terms generates value earlier — and develops faster the experience that used to take years.