Something’s been bugging me about how new devs and I need to talk about it. We’re at this weird inflection point in software development. Every junior dev I talk to has Copilot or Claude or GPT running 24/7. They’re shipping code faster than ever. But when I dig deeper into their understanding of what they’re shipping? That’s where things get concerning. Sure, the code works, but ask why it works that way instead of another way? Crickets. Ask about edge cases? Blank stares. The foundational knowledge that used to come from struggling through problems is just… missing. We’re trading deep understanding for quick fixes, and while it feels great in the moment, we’re going to pay for this later.
judging them by their approach, not end result, should be fair.
Yup, that’s the approach. It’s okay if they don’t finish, I want to know how they approach the problem. We absolutely adjust our decision based on the role.
If they can extend existing code and design a new system (with minimal new code) and ask the right questions, we can work with them.
Yup, that’s the approach. It’s okay if they don’t finish, I want to know how they approach the problem. We absolutely adjust our decision based on the role.
If they can extend existing code and design a new system (with minimal new code) and ask the right questions, we can work with them.