I see many junior developers struggling to land their first role right now. AI is effectively doing the job of a junior developer. It churns out boilerplate, basic CRUD operations, and standard algorithms faster than any human can type. However, if you look at the job boards, there are still plenty of software engineering openings.

The industry has a new problem: AI has flooded codebases with a lot of crappy, unoptimized code that must be fixed. Companies are now looking specifically for senior engineers because they need people to clean up the mess that automated tools leave behind. If you are a mid-level developer who wants to stand out and secure your position, you must be demonstrably better than the AI.