This is not very encouraging. According to recent research from Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab, published in August this year, companies that adopt AI at a higher rate are hiring 13% less junior people. Another Harvard study published in October this year said early-career 22-25 year olds in the same sectors are experiencing higher unemployment, while senior hiring has remained stable or even increased.
There are many young people who do not have the luxury of being with their parents during difficult times, and sadly this has the potential to impact their entire career path.
why i joined
Because of the work I do with People Work, I was lucky enough to be able to understand this issue in more depth when we joined CU Boulder Venture Partners’ Starting Blocks program to see if universities were realizing this too. The purpose of the program was to validate a customer segment for our business (students), but as a mother and an engineer, I had a deeper purpose. I interviewed university faculty, staff and students from across the country and I found that the research findings certainly resonated with people.
What am I hearing from universities
Most of the university’s post-graduation job placement statistics have yet to be researched, but staff and students alike have told me they feel it. Students are telling counselors they are struggling to get their first job and despair is looming.
I recently responded to a video of a CS graduate describing feeling ‘cooked’, and I get it. Feelings are valid.
The most surprising thing I learned is that everyone – career services staff, professors, deans, students, and parents – all agree that networking is absolutely essential to post-graduation job-placement success. (This was before they knew who I was or what PeopleWork was about.) They see the AI-resume/AI-recruiting game and know that the only way to stand out is to make real connections with other professionals.
That said, they all struggle with how to do this and/or how to deliver it to all students. Many have mentioned platform fatigue with all the networking apps designed to connect students with alumni or mentors. Even very well-resourced students who have access to mentorship groups, alumni associations, professional groups, etc. struggle to know how to build relationships and make the most of their access to people.
When career services professionals were asked what they needed, the most common answer was more staff. When students were asked what they needed, the most common answer was from a mentor who had been in their shoes a few years earlier, which was a surprising and encouraging answer.
They want intentional, meaningful, and authentic professional relationships with all students, but there appears to be a widespread lack of relational intelligence that prevents them from achieving this. This is completely normal and expected, because they are young and they have grown up with social media. But it’s especially problematic for those moving into AI-adopting industries, and here’s why.
“I’m an IC, not a manager” culture
When tech companies started giving engineers an alternative career path to management by allowing them to climb the ranks as individual contributors rather than becoming managers, I thought it was definitely the right move. still do. However, the unintended consequence of this is that we have spent a decade normalizing senior engineers staying away from next generation development.
When I was entering the tech field in my thirties, I quickly ran into this problem and found that I had to ask for guidance. People fresh out of college don’t have the years of experience to know that they should even do this. “I’m an IC, not a manager,” became an accepted argument for avoiding this work, and it became the norm throughout the tech industry.
AI is replacing a training ground, not a replacement for expertise
We used to have a training ground for junior engineers, but now AI is increasingly automating that work. Both studies I mentioned above cite the same thing – AI is only getting good at automating junior work while also enhancing senior work. So the evidence doesn’t show that AI is going to replace EveryoneIt’s just removing the apprenticeship ladder.
When we neglect to teach hands-on work, we lose manufacturing expertise.
When we avoid pair-programming, we miss out on transmitting tacit knowledge.
When we don’t teach the art of code review, we miss the opportunity to teach software architectural design.
When AI replaces junior engineering work and senior people are freed from development responsibilities, you get a missing generation.
Future Implications: Timing Mismatch
So what happens in 10-20 years when the current senior engineers retire? Where will the next batch of senior citizens come from? People who can build complex systems and make good decisions when faced with uncertain situations? They are skills that develop through years of work that start out simple and grow in complexity through human guidance.
We are bracing ourselves for the best of times to happen. We are eliminating junior jobs in the hope that AI will become good enough to handle complex, human judgment calls in the next 10-20 years. And if we’re wrong about that, we have very few people in the pipeline of senior engineers to solve those problems.
incentive structure problem
A particularly difficult problem to solve is that the economic incentives are completely misaligned.
The social contract between big companies and employees has been broken for years. American companies are optimized not for long-term investments in their employees, but for quarterly earnings. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t people in those companies who care about employee development, but the system is not set up in such a way that it is a top priority of the companies. They need the flexibility to make layoffs without regrets, and they trade about 2 years for average employee tenure. When that’s the case, there’s really no incentive to invest in juniors, so they just hire the seniors. And this is the magical thinking that has worked for the last decade, but I guess it’s no longer sustainable.
Let’s add it all together:
Companies replace junior positions with AI
+
Senior engineers have been excused from mentorship responsibilities
+
Companies optimize for immediate results
=
A systemic issue that no one person can fix
What You Can Control: Turn to Personal Agency
Given this broken system in which we find ourselves (those of us in AI-adopting industries), let’s focus not on what we are powerless over, but rather on what we can change.
I’m hopeful…hopeful if you will…that if enough people take ownership of their careers and development, companies will respond.
How to do it: Build skills that AI can’t automate
Master what AI can’t – the ability to influence, collaborate, and navigate complex human systems. When AI can write your code, human skill is the differentiator.
This is what it looks like in practice:
Identify the 10-30 people in your professional network who matter most to your career. These people will fall into four different categories:
- guide – who look to you for guidance.
- align – People you want to connect with, who have a vested interest in the outcome of your work.
- partner – The colleagues with whom you work and collaborate most closely.
- network – Your wider community with whom you create a cultural context with your shared values.
Think intentionally about nurturing each of those relationships. You’re not just “growing your network”, you’re looking to understand how your unique skills can help their specific needs. This will look different with each person, so be curious.
Track what’s working and what’s not. Notice what’s happening and how you feel about it. Introspect. Keep track of the commitments made between the two of you. Are you helpful or transactional?
Practice when the stakes are low. If you’re a student, practice building these relationship skills now, in the safety of school, where mistakes are welcomed. You will then be able to add value immediately and be in a better position to find that all-important internship and first job.
Why does this matter more than ever?
have senior engineering roles Always We’re in a leadership position, but we haven’t been great as an industry at implementing it. Imagine a tech industry where relationship skills were not only good but NecessaryWhere navigating complex human systems was seen as a core competency,
When students start practicing building this relational intelligence now, they are building muscle memory that will be very helpful when they graduate. Then when they get their first job from someone in that well-nurtured network, they can use that newly built relational intelligence to understand how to best engage in their new role and start adding value faster.
It requires deliberate practice, pattern recognition, and psychological safety. It will be difficult but necessary.
I won’t sugar coat it. Yes, the traditional apprenticeship model in tech is slowly dying out and AI is accelerating it. Yes, the incentive models of companies are not in favor of the employee. And yes, the 10-20 year talent pipeline is at risk.
But I didn’t write this post just to complain about a broken system. I wrote this post because I’ve been working on this system as a career changer in tech for the past decade and have learned a thing or two about how to do it successfully.
If you are a student or early career professionalStart building that relational intelligence now. Identify about 10-20 key relationships and work intentionally with them. Track what works and what doesn’t. We can help if you need!
If you are a senior engineer or managerTeaching emphasizes clarity. When you have to explain things in their most basic form, you understand it more deeply, and this, in turn, benefits the entire team.
If you are a university administratorI recommend incorporating relational intelligence into your core curriculum, especially in AI-adopting industries. If you need ideas on how to do this, we’re happy to help.
Relationship skills have always been a differentiator, but now they are a necessity. It makes us more human, and I believe adding more humanity to technology and business is wonderful.
We are here to help! Email me if you’d like to chat about making this more accessible to students, universities, engineering teams, or yourself.
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