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.
No. Junior Devs usually can’t code. Anyone who lacks experience in a given field usually is not proficient in that field. That’s not specific to software engineering.
The fix for this is pretty simple. It’s just one that not every senior dev is going to want to hear. You have to do the one thing that a lot of us don’t want to do: talk to people. You’ll find that if you make an effort to build rapport with the juniors and be at least as quick to point out their successes as you are to point out their failures, more often than not they will learn to trust you and come to you for guidance.