You don't hire juniors to do menial chores

There is this line of thought that has been bugging me for a while now: “With the coming of LLMs we don’t need juniors anymore”. The idea is that all the boring work (boilerplate, etc.) can be handled by LLMs, and we can now just focus on the real work.

As you’ve probably heard a million times by now, the counterargument to not hiring juniors is the question of succession. Who will be your future seniors? When I’ve asked that question before, I often hear company leaders say that they aren’t in the business of education and that schools should reassess how they bring young people into the job market.

I always wonder, for both the original argument and the counterargument, is this really what you think juniors do in your organization? I personally think there is a bit more to it.

Juniors are your cheapest source of innovation

When you hire a fresh graduate out of college they have just spent 3+ years, full-time, dedicated to learning a craft. Typically, in the case of college those years also included side tracks that are related to, but not strictly, the craft. Not only that, but they probably also passed all the gruelling tests you’ve thrown at them in the hiring phase¹.

Don’t you think these people have anything to say? Isn’t it weird that their first few years are dedicated to menial tasks like taking notes in meetings and finishing PowerPoints?

Juniors are exposed to new (or outside) technologies and processes that your organization might not use or know about. Good juniors are like sponges, over the past few years they’ve explored the craft from all angles, not just the textbooks and courses. Especially in tech. Yes it’s raw and unstructured, and maybe not be fit for anything you’re currently focused on, but it can be a great incubator for future processes and projects.

I understand that juniors still have a lot to learn, in my career I’ve worked with some of them who made me wonder how they passed school at all. But I’ve always made a point to hear them out on what they have to say.

Canary in the coal mine

Another great thing about hiring juniors is the stress test it brings with it. Every new hire comes with the task of onboarding. For more senior people this often goes smoother, they’ve seen how other companies operate, and they’re used to the industry’s best practices.

In the case of juniors, you’re going to have to walk through all of your processes and explain not only how they work, but also why they’re there. And hopefully you now have someone that will poke at all the holes and assumptions you have in these processes.

Yes that will take time, especially when your processes and documentation are full of said holes. But the more you guide people through them, the better the processes become. And this leads to a more mature organization that can optimize itself.

Cheaper in the long run

LLMs are expensive and are only going to become more expensive. Currently, they are subsidized by the companies themselves to get more market share, but at some point they will have to start making profits. Their biggest customers are enterprise customers, so that is also where the bulk of the revenue will have to come from.

Capturing the market often goes hand in hand with vendor lock-in. If you currently go full-on focus on agents and connect everything to everything, you’re going to have a hard time decoupling your application portfolio once the price hikes come. ²

The pipeline from junior to senior will actually be cheaper in the long run³. If you have a predictable progression route you can plan your finances around this, you can also steer your talent towards the needs of your company without having to go to market.

There is also the ambassador role these people play if they were to leave the company. If you bring up a junior through the ranks, they carry your company culture with them. Once they start at a new company (or start their own), they will structure their work in the way they are comfortable with. And that is your way, a way you are the expert in as you’ve invented it. So if these people require help, support, or consulting your organization will be in prime position to provide said services.

That is obviously on the condition that you’ve treated them as a humans.