The Death of the Junior Developer, and Other Lessons Learned

Summary

In this insightful talk, Steve Yi discusses the transformative impact of AI on the workforce, particularly in software development. He highlights how AI is disproportionately benefiting senior professionals, which has significant implications for junior developers. Yi shares his experiences from building a coding assistant at Sourcegraph and emphasizes the need for companies to adapt to the changing landscape of programming, where AI tools like LLMs are becoming central to code generation and review processes.

Takeaways

• 😀 Steve Yi shared stories on how AI is helping senior professionals disproportionately, impacting juniors in many fields.
• 📰 Steve's post on 'The death of the junior developer' was inspired by his work at Sourcegraph building a coding assistant.
• 🚀 AI is changing the landscape of software development, with a shift towards valuing senior contributors more due to their experience.
• 💼 The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a rise in 'entitlement' and 'anxiety' among software engineers, affecting productivity.
• 📈 There's a trend where AI tools are making it easier for senior developers to be more productive, potentially leaving junior developers behind.
• 🛠️ Tools like coding assistants and AI models are becoming integral parts of the software development process.
• 🔍 Companies need to focus on improving discoverability of their codebases to leverage the full potential of AI.
• 🏢 There's a significant disparity among companies in how they are adopting and preparing for AI in software development.
• 👨‍💻 The role of junior developers is becoming increasingly challenging due to the influx of AI tools that favor more experienced developers.
• 🔑 For companies to stay competitive, they need to embrace AI and align their engineering teams to work effectively with these new tools.

Q & A

Who is Steve Yi and what is his connection to Amazon and Google?

Steve Yi is a notable figure known for his inside account of Jeff Bezos' 'Thou shalt communicate only by APIs' memo. He has worked with both Amazon and Google, and his experiences and insights into these companies are well-regarded in the tech industry.

What did Steve Yi discuss with the audience about AI's impact on work?

Steve Yi shared stories and observations on how AI is disproportionately helping senior professionals in their careers, regardless of the profession, and the consequential impacts this has on junior professionals, including software developers.

What is the 'death of the junior developer' post by Steve Yi about?

The 'death of the junior developer' post by Steve Yi is based on his observations while helping build a coding assistant at Sourcegraph. It discusses the changing landscape of software development due to AI, potentially leading to less coding work for junior developers.

What is Steve Yi's opinion on the current state of software engineering jobs?

Steve Yi believes that the software engineering job market has been significantly impacted by factors like zero interest rate policy and economic stimulus, leading to an influx of jobs and subsequently entitlement and anxiety among engineers.

What does Steve Yi think about the future of coding with AI?

Steve Yi predicts that within 18 to 24 months, all code will be written by Large Language Models (LLMs), and this shift will require a focus on senior contributors who can effectively use these AI tools.

What is 'chat-oriented programming' as mentioned by Steve Yi?

Chat-oriented programming is a technique where developers use LLMs to write code through interactive chat interfaces. It's an evolving method that is becoming more practical and efficient with the advancement of AI models like GPT.

Why is Steve Yi encouraging companies to start using coding assistants?

Steve Yi encourages the use of coding assistants because they can significantly speed up the coding process and help with tasks like code reviews and auditing. They also help with the discovery and retrieval of code in large codebases.

What does Steve Yi suggest companies do to prepare for the AI revolution in coding?

Steve Yi suggests that companies should get their house in order by aligning their engineers, starting to use coding assistance, and preparing for the use of self-hosted models that are secure and legal for their intellectual property.

What is the significance of the 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' reference in Steve Yi's talk?

The reference to 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' is used by Steve Yi to illustrate the vast amount of intellectual property that companies have in the form of code repositories, wikis, and issues trackers. He stresses that this data needs to be processed by AI for better discoverability.

What is 'rag' in the context of Steve Yi's discussion on AI in coding?

In the context of Steve Yi's discussion, 'rag' stands for Retrieval Augmented Generation. It refers to the need for intelligent systems to index and provide searchable indexes of codebases to aid developers in finding and using relevant code efficiently.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 The Impact of AI on Senior and Junior Developers

Steve Yi, known for his insights into Amazon and Google, discusses the effects of AI on the workforce, particularly how it benefits senior professionals across various fields, including software development. He shares anecdotes from his meetings with industry leaders and his own experiences at Sourcegraph, where he observed a significant shift towards AI assistance in coding. This trend, he warns, could lead to the 'death of the junior developer' as AI tools become more integrated, potentially disadvantaging those early in their careers.

05:02

🛠️ The Changing Landscape of Software Engineering

Steve Yi delves into the transformation of software engineering due to AI, emphasizing the rise of 'coding assistants' and the challenges it poses for junior developers. He reflects on his career, noting the industry's shift from building in-house software to adopting SaaS models. Yi humorously compares his role to a 'cable guy', gaining insights into various companies' operations and challenges. He also touches on the industry's struggle with entitlement and anxiety, exacerbated by market fluctuations and the COVID-19 pandemic.

10:03

📈 The Emergence of AI in Coding and its Implications

Yi discusses the rapid evolution of AI in coding, suggesting that within 18 to 24 months, AI will dominate code writing. He highlights the divide in the industry's response to this change, with some companies aggressively adopting AI and others lagging behind. The pressure is mounting on junior developers as tools and expectations evolve, and Yi emphasizes the need for companies to adapt and prepare for the influx of AI-generated code and the challenges of managing vast amounts of intellectual property.

15:06

🔍 Embracing AI in Coding: Tools and Strategies

In the final paragraph, Steve Yi focuses on practical steps companies can take to integrate AI into their coding processes. He advocates for the use of coding assistants and the importance of context in AI-generated code. Yi stresses the need for better discovery and retrieval systems to manage the vast amounts of data that AI will process. He encourages the audience to pivot from traditional coding methods to embrace AI, suggesting that those who fail to adapt risk being left behind in this new era of software development.

Keywords

💡APIs

APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, are sets of rules that allow different software applications to communicate with each other. In the context of the video, Steve Yi references Jeff Bezos' memo that advocated for internal communication at Amazon to occur primarily through APIs, highlighting a shift towards more structured and machine-readable interactions within the company.

💡AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to learn from experience and perform tasks without being explicitly instructed. The video discusses how AI is impacting the workforce, particularly in favor of senior professionals, and the implications this has for junior employees across various industries, including software development.

💡Coding Assistant

A coding assistant is a tool that uses AI to help developers write code more efficiently. In the video, Steve Yi talks about his experience with building a coding assistant at Sourcegraph and how it can accelerate the work of developers, especially senior ones, by handling more routine and lower-level coding tasks.

💡LLMs

Large Language Models (LLMs) are a type of AI model that can process and generate human-like text based on the input they receive. The video emphasizes the growing role of LLMs in software development, suggesting that they will soon be responsible for writing a significant portion of new code, thus changing the nature of programming work.

💡CHAT-Oriented Programming

CHAT-Oriented Programming is a term used in the video to describe a programming paradigm where developers interact with LLMs through conversational interfaces to generate code. This approach is seen as a shift from traditional coding practices, where developers write code line by line to a more interactive and conversational style.

💡Entitlement

In the video, 'entitlement' refers to a sense of deserving privileges or rewards without having to earn them. Steve Yi discusses how the influx of job opportunities and economic stimulus during the pandemic led to a sense of entitlement among engineers, which is now causing challenges for management as job markets tighten.

💡Anxiety

Anxiety, as mentioned in the video, is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something that is happening or might happen. Steve Yi connects the rise in remote work and the subsequent drop in job opportunities to increased anxiety among engineers, affecting their sense of self-worth and validation.

💡Innovator's Dilemma

The Innovator's Dilemma is a term coined by Clayton M. Christensen that describes a situation where established companies fail to continue developing new products because they are focused on their existing successful products. In the video, Steve Yi suggests that companies are in the Innovator's Dilemma regarding the adoption of AI and LLMs in software development, as they risk being disrupted by competitors who embrace these technologies.

💡Discovery Problem

The 'discovery problem' in the video refers to the challenge organizations face in finding and accessing their vast amounts of intellectual property and code repositories. Steve Yi argues that LLMs will be necessary to process and make sense of this information, as traditional methods are insufficient for handling the scale and complexity of modern codebases.

💡RAG

RAG stands for Retrieve, Augment, Generate, which is a process for AI models to first retrieve relevant information, augment it with additional insights, and then generate new content based on that information. The video suggests that all companies will become 'RAG shops' as they adopt LLMs for tasks like coding assistance, code reviews, and audits.

Highlights

Steve Yi shared insights on AI's impact on work, particularly benefiting senior professionals.

AI is disproportionately aiding senior individuals in their careers, affecting juniors across professions.

Steve Yi's experience building a coding assistant at Sourcegraph revealed AI's significant role in software development.

AI is changing the dynamics of software engineering, potentially leading to the 'death of the junior developer'.

Steve Yi's career spans 30 years, with a focus on companies that build their own software.

The transition to SaaS was initially daunting for Steve Yi, but it turned out to be an enlightening experience.

Steve Yi observed a pattern of increased difficulty in software engineering, with CEOs reporting productivity loss.

The COVID-19 pandemic and economic stimulus have led to a job market surge and subsequent entitlement and anxiety among engineers.

There's a cultural shift towards not allowing engineers to become entitled, as observed by Walmart and Amazon.

Steve Yi predicts that within 18 to 24 months, all code will be written by AI, a controversial stance that sparked debate.

The role of AI in coding is evolving, with a focus on senior contributors and a shift away from junior developers.

Coding is becoming chat-oriented, with developers using AI to generate and refine code.

The importance of using coding assistants and the potential for self-hosted models to address security and legal concerns.

The need for companies to prepare for AI processing of intellectual property, as current discovery methods are insufficient.

The disparity between companies that are ahead in AI adoption and those that are lagging, with some not even starting their evaluation.

The imperative for companies to get their house in order, align engineers, and start using coding assistance to stay competitive.

Steve Yi's recommendation to use any available coding assistant to improve developer productivity and code quality.

The future of coding lies in 'chop' and chat-oriented programming, necessitating a shift in focus from completion rates to context.

Transcripts

so anyone who has studied Amazon and or

Google probably knows the name Steve Yi

uh he notoriously gave the world an

inside account of the famous Jeff Bezos

Thou shalt communicate only by api's

memo this accidental public post led him

to being on the front page of the Wall

Street Journal I finally got to meet him

a couple of weeks ago and he is as

hilarious irreverent as brilliant as you

might expect but we shared some stories

on how AI is affecting work uh and and

one particular theme one particular

theme emerged AI seems to

disproportionately help senior people in

their careers regardless of profession

uh and this has some very real and

consequential impacts on Junior people

in so many professions including

software one of the outcomes of that

conversation was another epic Yi post

called the death of the junior developer

based on what his observations helping

build a Cod coding assistant at source

graph I'm so excited that he'll be

sharing not what he's learned but his

perspectives on why gen why he thinks

gen gen is so important here's

[Music]

[Applause]

Steve my mic on all

right all right hey thanks thanks for

the kind words Jean it's good to be uh

back on stage I haven't been on stage in

15 years and it'll probably be another

15 years before I get invited back

because I'm going to say something

that's going to get me in

trouble and I just finished my slides an

hour

ago it's also it's also great to be back

in the industry after a little Hiatus

during covid if you look at this gold

box here this represent 30 years of my

career and during that 30 years those

four companies they all built their own

software they didn't buy yeah probably

most of you work for companies like that

too they make procurement really hard

yeah and and and they they like to build

their own stuff because it scales or for

whatever reason and so when I went to

Source graph you know I went into SAS I

was like oh no you know this is going to

be terrible right I got I got to sell

software but it turns out to be

absolutely amazing okay why because I

get to go into all of your houses I mean

not your literal houses thank God but

your your places of business and I get

to see your architecture and your hopes

and your dreams and your Ambitions and

your problems and you all open up to me

and it's pretty awesome I mean I'm

basically like the cable guy yeah just

going house to house I even get barked

at by security and legal

teams you know but it's really really

really cool because people you know they

kind of open up to their cable guy kind

of like their hairdresser and they tell

me all the problems that they have and I

get to see patterns yeah and oh my God

this is a very old version of my slide

deck

um a very old version I'm just going to

an can you please fix my slide deck

thank you all right so all of you are um

unfortunately telling me that this is

harder this time

around now I know a lot of you have been

doing this for a long time right 10

years 15 years 20 years in these

leadership positions and I'm hearing a

consistent theme which is that

something's different and you can't

quite put your finger on it like you you

hear CEOs you know talking about

productivity loss and they all think

it's RTO and they're all frustrated cuz

that's not helping

why why is everything so hard I think

there are some forces going on here I'm

going to talk about them really briefly

before we get to the fun stuff because I

think you all need to know this all

right oh my God this is a very very

outdated version of my slide I'm going

to have to wing it here um so what

happened was you all got

zered zero interest rate policy yeah and

a$2 trillion doll economic stimulus

package and what happened was everybody

had free

money and jobs jobs jobs software

engineering jobs yeah and in my old

slide deck I can try to find some stuff

here here it is here it is this is what

happened you can actually see covid

starts and then Zer happens in March

2020 and it starts to climb up you can

see when chat GPT came out it Peaks and

then Zer end in March 2022 and it's

tumbling down this had two really

serious effects on our industry and on

our engineering organizations all of

them all

right one of them

strangely enough from this horrific AI

drawing which is horrifically accurate

actually the first problem I actually

got warned about by Walmart in 1999 is

that weird that's weird yeah because

what they said was the fully 10% of

Amazon at the time was ex Walmart senior

Executives they got sued over this and

all this and they brought their culture

and their culture was basically one

message it was do not allow your

engineers to become entitled and we were

like what right cuz like at Amazon for

reasons I probably explained before we

were not very entitled but that's

because Bezos took his entire Playbook

from Walmart and it wasn't until I went

to Google in 2005 that I finally

understood what entitlement meant

huh right because they're four Engineers

by Engineers they were princesses

everyone got a pony it was it was

awesome and I became one of the most

entitled people there I mean I'm not

proud of it anybody who knew me there

right it happens it's a real phenomenon

and it happened to the entire industry

because of Zer when the jobs were going

up and then on the way down the

phenomenon that had started with the

lockdown I had PMS telling me that gpms

telling me their PMS were going mad

during lockdown because their sense of

self-worth and validation came from

in-person interactions their little

glowing screen wasn't doing it that

phenomenon continued as the job started

to plummet wherever that slide is and

and and now anxiety set in and so those

are the two gifts gifts that Co gave us

oh my God the slide's gone but anyway

this two the two gifts are entitlement

and anxiety and you're all dealing with

it many of you not very well okay you've

still got people teams telling you don't

scare the engineers there's going to be

a wave of attrition all right I can tell

you right now they're going to they're

going to thank you when you get your

house in order your engineers will thank

you because Engineers only love one

thing more than everything else right

they love to work together as a team to

launch something amazing and if you have

a misalignment problem which many of you

do hey I'm the cable guy I'm just

echoing back what you've all told be all

right if you have an alignment problem

your engineers are not happy

fundamentally and they will be happy as

soon as you fix it yeah so I just wanted

to like talk about that and put it in

context for this because you're all

stuck in the innovator's

Dilemma all of you maybe some of you

think oh Jenna I didn't really affect as

much but remember in order to get

disrupted either your competitor has to

build the same product as you for 10

times cheaper or they have to make a

product that's 10 times more accessible

well they can build it 10 times cheaper

if they can figure out a way to get gen

to accelerate the developers and they

can make their product 10 times more

accessible if they can use gen in a

clever way right so there's two ways

that any one of your competitors could

disrupt you right this is a serious

problem and I blogged about it in May

right and uh because because coding

itself is changing and this post was

hilarious it's split people right down

the middle people were divided over this

post the post was a really simple

premise a really simple premise the

premise was within 18 to 24

months all code is going to be written

by

llms a lot of people didn't like that

they didn't like that premise right by

the way Gan helped me co-write this blog

post yeah Jean Kim and and he's the

reason I'm so he's part of the reason

I'm so confident about it because we

researched the hell out of it before I

posted it it's happening in multiple

Industries llms are taking over the sort

of the creative work right the lowlevel

creative work and all you need is sort

of supervis it's like a it's like a

kitchen imagine you know you're a you're

a cook and you've just been elevated to

a Master Chef and you've got a bunch of

robots that can do the prep cook and all

the work and you just have to like turn

it into a good meal that's how it's

changing right and that's why there's

this Focus shifting towards senior

contributors because if you're a bad

cook and I give you a bunch of robots

you're just going to make a big bad meal

right that I mean this is just common

sense so people were calling me out of

retirement people who retired and

they're like you're wrong right because

because the the consequences would be

inconvenient that's why I'm wrong right

actually it turned out a lot of them

were calling me they're angry because

their kids just graduated with computer

science degrees and they're like you're

poisoning the well right fine I'm

poisoning the well

but this right here is how programming

is changing and many of you most of you

are still stuck in like

February that's how that's how far

that's how fast it changes all right

you're probably thinking about

completion acceptance rates right and

token counting and trying to like

compute what percentage of the code is

written by AI versus people a lot of you

are doing that it's dumb all right it's

ancient history completions are a

gimmick the way coding has changed and

by the way the people who called me to

tell me right that I was wrong none of

them write code every day like my title

as you'll see on my my badge is engineer

I'm a grunt I'm the cable guy yeah the

people who code every day are telling me

this is happening all right chat

oriented

programming you do everything with the

llm

yeah it's an evolving technique

I know a lot of senior people who are

using it I don't know a lot of Junior

people who are using it why it's it's

the chef thing I just told you but

there's there's a bunch of things that

you can do with chop right with chop oh

my God here here here's a picture of it

all right you're literally in the llm

and you're just like ah this method's

wrong right and it'll give you a bunch

of suggestions and then it'll give you

some code and you've got to like find a

way to get back that back into your code

base right it's an iterative digging

cycle and you can go to different llms

and you can go to different coding

assistants and you can go to different

sources right but eventually you get it

to write the code and you're five to 10

times faster this way it's

counterintuitive because you're spending

a lot of time just typing right what

you're what you're what you what you

want but you have an infinitely fast

generator

right so what is really changing here

right because people were really really

freaked out about this by the way I got

calls from comp big companies okay a few

big companies where you would hear their

name and you'd be like oh that's that's

money money's not a problem for them and

they said that they have been they've

been witnessing this phenomenon un

unfolding in their engineering Orcs the

pressure towards senior developers and

Senior contributors and and it's tough

to be a junior developer right now

there's a huge wave of tooling coming in

your IDE doesn't even begin to scratch

the surfice of what you can do with Gen

in in code production you'll probably

hear from some of our friends at like

GitHub about this like the idees are

actually somewhat limiting the tools

that are coming are all going to require

llms to process your intellectual

property now I had a wonderful wonderful

slide in here that unfortunately is not

here anymore it was a picture from

Raiders of the last dark the very last

scene where they're pushing the box into

the giant Warehouse of boxes all right

you remember that's your intellectual

property assets I've been talking to

some of you in the audience here and

you're telling me that Discovery is your

hardest problem you got thousands tens

of thousands of repos you got wikis

you've got issues and project trackers

new bank was ingesting what 50 pedabytes

a day all of that data is going to need

to be processed by

llms and almost none of you are ready

for it in fact some of the companies

that are on the floor aren't doing any

geni I'm not going to name and shame you

know who you are okay but there's a

massive as your cable guy all right I

can tell you there is a massive disp ity

between how the companies in this room

and the companies in our industry are

dealing with Gen we've got the entire

Spectrum I've met some companies that

are like science fiction they're out

there they've got massive gen teams

already and they've got they're

executing on five to 10 year plans okay

seriously I mean they got their act

together and then I got other companies

are like yeah we had to push off our gen

evaluation because we out of migration

blah blah blah blah blah right they're

going to die right this is serious

coding is changing out from underneath

this and they're struggling trying to

figure out whether they whether they can

even use it or not yeah so what are you

going to do about it first get your

house in order get your engineers

aligned yeah start using coding

assistance I know a lot of you have

tried them in February all right they

weren't very good back then okay chop

chat oriented programming wasn't

actually practical until chat GPT 4 came

out and then the foundation models after

that 35 Sonet you know Gemini 1.5 now

they're good enough and they're they're

going to be getting better exponentially

over the next two two years right so

we're going to see more and more and

more code get written but I can tell you

chop is a lot easier with a coding

assistant yeah you can do it with just

GPT now a lot of people were like well

that's never going to work for us

because security legal blah blah blah we

don't want our code sent to llms third

parties yeah I guarantee you self-hosted

models are coming it will be accessible

to all of you in a way that makes your

security and legal teams fine with it

okay so you might as well start prepping

for it cuz that Raiders the Lost Art

picture that I didn't get to show you

right you need to start getting ready

for retrieval augmented generation rag

all of you are now rag shops because of

this this is the killer app for geni

right and you these coding assistants

are going to come in and they're going

to start writing all of your code and

they're going to start doing all kinds

of stuff reviews right and auditing and

all that cool stuff right all those you

basically need batch Ai and then you're

you're off the races right get a coding

assistant because it's all about context

slinging all right in the end you have a

bunch of data the llm can only attend a

token window that's yay big I don't care

if it's a million tokens if you're

taking in 50 pedabytes a day it ain't

going to fit in the context window so

you need an intelligent system that can

go in and index produce indexes of all

of your stuff search indexes knowledge

graphs llm semantic indexes all of that

stuff you need it because otherwise your

engineers are going to ask questions and

they're not going to get the answers

that they need because of your

discoverability problem huh so

congratulations you are all rag folks

now by the way which coding assistant I

had not had my Cody hat on today I'm I'm

working on a coding assistant and we

really like it there's a bunch I the Box

the box sizes are meaningless Cody does

have a bigger box but you know it's

meaningless but seriously any one of

these is

good okay they're all they're all good

some of them are very slick and Polished

and they're turny experiences and and

maybe that's what you need if you're the

kind of company that likes to Tinker you

know you like you build your own cicd

you build your own developer

infrastructure you're taking your

developer productivity into your own

hands you're very interested in gen as a

platform then I I would take a look at

Cody because that that's what we're

doing right we're doing platform plays

and cont slinging that's that's been our

Focus not agents agents are coming right

you probably hear about some of them

today and tomorrow but chop chat

oriented programming is what programmers

are going to do before from now until

the agents actually work and actually

Beyond when the agents start working you

need a human being to supervise it to

push it along even with the agents right

to verify it spot check it all that so

Chop's not going to go away not for not

for a good long time so I would

recommend using any of these all right

hey look they they finally got my slid

fixed on the last slide so help I am

looking

for yeah so you need to Pivot stop

thinking about car completion acceptance

rate stop thinking about completions

right that's it really was a

gimmick what you need to do is start

thinking about how you're going to get

because it's a right we're GNA we'll do

this together we're we're when you know

we or whoever whoever you work with when

they index your code it has to be a

joint effort because you all have really

complicated if you hadn't noticed from

the talks yeah so you know call your

cable

guy hey folks it's been a great great uh

time up here I've been really happy to

um chat with you all uh I look forward

to meeting some of you afterwards I hope

that this was somewhat interesting and

entertaining uh feel free to come up and

uh grab me after and uh and uh introduce

yourself yeah thanks all