#278 - AI Does NOT Replace Junior Developers, Here's Why

Develop Yourself

Every headline says AI is eating developer jobs. But spend a week in production and you’ll see the opposite: brittle code, flaky tests, and tools that look fast until you actually ship something.

In this episode, I break down why the “AI replaces engineers” story sells so well—to investors, to execs, and to lazy headlines—but falls apart in the real world. We’ll talk through a Cornell + METR study showing seasoned devs got 19% slower using AI (even though they thought they were faster), and why that tracks with what I’ve seen on real teams.

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فصول

1. Setting The Stakes: AI And Jobs (00:00:00)

2. Why “AI Replaces Workers” Sells (00:00:56)

3. The Case For Humans In The Loop (00:02:35)

4. Bloated Code, Weak Tests, Real Risks (00:04:34)

5. Research Check: AI May Slow Seniors (00:06:20)

6. A TikTok Pipeline And Fake Tests (00:08:39)

7. Where AI Shines: Prototypes, Not Critical Paths (00:10:52)

8. Try This: The Open Source Reality Check (00:12:15)