It is now undeniable to me that many entry-level jobs have been automated. I see this at my clients' businesses and I hear about it from colleagues and contacts everyday.
Not only am I seeing it but I am doing it. Work that I would have previously hired junior developers to do I can now do myself quickly and easily. My team has shrunk. I don't feel great about giving people I have worked with for years less work, but now it takes longer to task someone else to do something than it does to do it myself.
The tasks that used to define the first two years of a career are now just a button a senior can press. It's hard to justify the cost of hiring a junior when AI can fill in that role and the senior can be 10x more productive.
The issue is that this creates a massive "Hollow Middle" risk:
The old advice was "get your foot in the door." But what happens when the door is locked and the entry level requires 3 years of experience?
Young people will need help. More than I did at their age. Help with the right career choice, and help with the right skills and tools. They need to learn to use AI as a career navigation system. In this economy, being "AI-literate" isn't an advantage, it's the bare minimum for entry.
The new model requires the following:
Companies need to use AI to shorten the time it takes to turn juniors into high-impact contributors.
How can job seekers navigate this new model? Show that you can take a problem, use your brain and AI to break it down, and produce a usable result quickly. The winning candidates will use AI to multiply their thinking. Use AI to continuously learn, build, show, and iterate. The advantage goes to those who execute and adapt quickly, not those who wait for direction.
As a CTO, I see the disconnect widening from both sides. I see a future where I look at a company's organizational chart. It's blank. We have to hire external talent. That's expensive and risky.
Optimizing for short-term efficiency comes at a cost. AI makes teams look productive so the instinct is to hire less. But that same decision quietly erodes the future and the result is a system that no longer produces sustainable talent and results in a leadership shortage.
Job seekers and employers both need to do the same thing. Think strategically about how humans and AI can work in harmony, over the long-term, to produce the right results.
It is now undeniable to me that many entry-level jobs have been automated. I see this at my clients' businesses and I hear about it from colleagues and contacts everyday.
Not only am I seeing it but I am doing it. Work that I would have previously hired junior developers to do I can now do myself quickly and easily. My team has shrunk. I don't feel great about giving people I have worked with for years less work, but now it takes longer to task someone else to do something than it does to do it myself.
The tasks that used to define the first two years of a career are now just a button a senior can press. It's hard to justify the cost of hiring a junior when AI can fill in that role and the senior can be 10x more productive.
The issue is that this creates a massive "Hollow Middle" risk:
The old advice was "get your foot in the door." But what happens when the door is locked and the entry level requires 3 years of experience?
Young people will need help. More than I did at their age. Help with the right career choice, and help with the right skills and tools. They need to learn to use AI as a career navigation system. In this economy, being "AI-literate" isn't an advantage, it's the bare minimum for entry.
The new model requires the following:
Companies need to use AI to shorten the time it takes to turn juniors into high-impact contributors.
How can job seekers navigate this new model? Show that you can take a problem, use your brain and AI to break it down, and produce a usable result quickly. The winning candidates will use AI to multiply their thinking. Use AI to continuously learn, build, show, and iterate. The advantage goes to those who execute and adapt quickly, not those who wait for direction.
As a CTO, I see the disconnect widening from both sides. I see a future where I look at a company's organizational chart. It's blank. We have to hire external talent. That's expensive and risky.
Optimizing for short-term efficiency comes at a cost. AI makes teams look productive so the instinct is to hire less. But that same decision quietly erodes the future and the result is a system that no longer produces sustainable talent and results in a leadership shortage.
Job seekers and employers both need to do the same thing. Think strategically about how humans and AI can work in harmony, over the long-term, to produce the right results.