I see where the author is going, but I think we need to be realistic that LLMs are taking a cut of where we would normally use a junior dev. the value prop is fairly poor if we expect a junior to leave after 18-24 months and they aren't able to learn enough in a short enough period to get some of the investment back. I'm still all for having junior devs around- I think they provide a LOT of intangible value, but we probably should be realistic about the new world we're heading into.
The problem I see with this is: no-one is born a senior developer. One starts as a junior-level dev, and through trial and error, mistakes and mentoring, grow into an increasingly senior person.
You are not just investing into a person who will leave; you are investing in your future senior devs.
We can never capture all the value we create in the world. The more value we create, the smaller proportion of it we can capture.
Education is the quintessential example of this. Preschool is an incredible investment [0] but the payoff happens far away in time in space. While you can't capture the value generated by running a great preschool, you certainly benefit from a community of adults who had strong early childhood education... thanks to investments from other people at some other time & place.
An expansive mindset is required to benefit from these kinds of investments.
If you're mid level, you'll be even more in demand as LLM code fixers. But look at industries that didn't build juniors up and see that they have the hardest time recruiting, so much so that PE buys them out and guts everything.
