Comment by ltbarcly3

The argument you respond to here is "it is impossible for anyone to be Junior Software Engineer because AI". That is a straw-man.

The actual argument is "there will be no jobs for Junior Engineers, so there will be far fewer, and as a result there will be a huge shortage of Senior Software Engineers".

You are responding to the problem as if it some kind of extinction event, like a rare bird, where if we can find a breeding population we save the day. A few curious people, self training for the love of the game, and as a result we still have a few Software Engineers so everything is fine. It is not like that, and I haven't heard anyone suggest that is the issue. The potential problem is a massive shortage of workers with skills that are currently essential to the functioning of a large fraction of the economy, whom we might still need in the future.

The continued existence of talented enthusiasts does not establish an adequate workforce pipeline. If paid entry level experience contracts, what replaces it, and why should we expect that replacement to operate at sufficient scale?