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.
There is only so much mentoring can do though. You can have the best math prof. You still need to put in the exercise to solve your differential equations to get good at it.
You get out of education what you put into it.
You won’t be an artist from the best art school if you do the bare minimum to pass.
You can end up as a legend of the industry coming from a noname school.
All I hear is “I’m bad at mentoring”
And some sort of “no one wants to work any more”.
I know young brilliant people, maybe they have to be paid correctly?
There is only so much mentoring can do though. You can have the best math prof. You still need to put in the exercise to solve your differential equations to get good at it.
You get out of education what you put into it. You won’t be an artist from the best art school if you do the bare minimum to pass. You can end up as a legend of the industry coming from a noname school.