If I look back at my 25 years of software development (yes, I really am aging myself! - the first software I built was for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney!) there have been various phases the industry has gone through, especially in terms of learning new software skills.

In the early period of the late 90s to mid 2000s, many new tools and programming languages were becoming popular (or even being invented) like .Net, Javascript, Java, etc. Software Developers chose their languages and could focus on them for most of their careers.

There were a few moments between then and now where new things came along and somewhat disrupted things. For example, Wordpress (and other platforms/frameworks). Mobile (iOS and Android), some more refined languages (like React and Go), some on the database side (MongoDB, etc.), and, of course, cloud computing (AWS, etc.)

But still, the challenges for the developer over the years have been quite minimal. A Java developer from 2005 could still find plenty of work with only some minimal upskilling over time. Of course, we would hear stories of the developers who were coding in Fortran and could no longer find work, but these stories sort of petered out. Most companies would essentially hire developers with the relevant skills present in their organization, and then the developers were off to the races.

Now, let’s talk about AI!

I know - we keep hearing the word “AI” over and over, and it’s getting a bit repetitive… BUT… I do think that Copilot and AI tools being used by developers are shaking up the industry big time.

It’s still early to see where things end up, but we are starting to wrap our heads around some of the larger themes at play here. One thing is for sure, the challenges are affecting the entire ecosystem of developers, including junior developers just starting their careers, more seasoned senior developers, and the organizations they contribute to.

As we learned in our deep dive into the promises and realities of generative AI (see blog here), coding tools like Copilot and a flood of new talent into the industry are creating a changing job market and a clear shift in the demand for skills.

These changes seem to be marking a new era for software developers. We are right in the middle of a shift away from predictable hiring and generalized skillsets to a market that is more competitive, diverse, and fluid.

With these changes happening, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at how all of this is affecting hiring and what trends are affecting the evolving job market.

The Gold Rush May Be Over…

In the early days of hiring in the software developer space, the landscape was relatively straightforward. Companies sought out developers primarily based on their ability to write code and solve technical problems. The focus was largely on finding individuals with specific language skills and problem-solving abilities. If you could code, it was pretty likely you would find work.

Seniority also played a big role, and of course, the more senior, the more $$$! 🤑

As the tech industry began to grow, the demand for developers surged. This led to what many now refer to as the "developer boom." During this time, there was a significant increase in job opportunities, and skilled developers were in high demand. Organizations were eager to bring talent on board to keep up with innovative products.

In this early “gold rush”, the emphasis was on hiring developers quickly to meet the growing demands of the tech world. Companies invested heavily in recruitment, often focusing on candidates with experience in various popular programming languages. The tech industry saw an unprecedented influx of new roles and job titles, and finding a good developer was HARD! It pretty much seemed as though, the more tech talent you had, the better your chances of success were for a company or startup.

Fast-forward to today, and this rapid growth has begun to level out.

Not only that, but many companies have had mass layoffs. The focus has been shifting from merely filling positions to seeking a more specialized talent pool and adapting to evolving organizational needs. The days of software development being an “easy in” are looking like they might be over.

The real peak hit in 2022, only 2 years ago…

Things have begun to level out since then in terms of job openings and demand for software developers. This, coupled with the new AI tools available to software developers, has opened up a new playing field for the modern software developer.

The market seems to be less about finding the “best coder” and more about finding developers who can navigate the quickly shifting complexities of modern organizations. There's a growing emphasis on adaptability and a broader skill set that includes familiarity with emerging technologies, such as AI, change management, and machine learning. We’ll go a bit deeper on this later.

The new “Senior Developer Market” is an important new trend that is pretty representative of the current state of things. This new senior-dominated reality has squashed the dreams of aspiring developers who were hoping for an easy paycheck and repetitive work.

Instead, many newcomers fresh out of boot camp are finding an extremely competitive job market that is less welcoming than it once was.

In our last post, we found that many junior developers are mainly encountering highly impacted job posts looking for “entry-level” developers with at least 3 years of experience or higher, which may make it difficult for newcomers to get their start.

In a recent video from leading influencer Namanh Kapur, he interviewed current software engineers at LinkedIn to get their take on how to get hired in 2024.

Among those interviewed were both junior developers coming from non-traditional backgrounds and senior developers who are leading innovative projects within the company.

One common theme among all of these developers was that things are not as easy in 2024 as they were even just a few years ago when they were hired.

When asked if he was afraid of the changes happening currently, one fearless senior developer who was interviewed proclaimed, “Nothing scares me.”

After this, he gave some more practical advice to juniors in the space:

“Focus on contributing. Folks are usually really eager to take your contributions… and that can segway into a job.” He added, “Be aware of your surroundings…find opportunities to contribute to meaningful projects, and make sure your boss can get you promoted.”

According to a different engineer, Mammadu Diallo, a site reliability engineer at LinkedIn, the best thing new candidates can do is to “find meaningful internships and keep grinding.”

As the senior developer mentioned, if new developers can focus on contributing and stay consistent and aware, they may be able to find successful careers amidst the rapidly evolving hiring landscape of 2024 and beyond.

This does run contrary to the classic approach of just learning a bunch of languages and then trying to get hired, though.

No Shortcuts for Junior Developers

Lately, it seems like developers, especially juniors, have been really concerned about their job prospects moving forward.

When asked about the prospects of junior developers and the types of skills that may be needed in coming years, we can tell that these Reddit users are not so optimistic:

This post from X also highlights the fun that seniors are having with their less-experienced counterparts:

Juniors have been getting it pretty rough in recent years!

While juniors may seemingly be at a disadvantage right now, historically they have played a crucial role in helping seniors adapt to new technologies.

According to experts, juniors often “bring fresh perspectives” and are “quick to experiment with emerging tools”, which has traditionally allowed them to bridge the gap between cutting-edge innovations and established practices.

Junior developers may also have the advantage of generational traits, including “real-time experimentation close to the work itself”. Also, they may be “more willing to learn innovative methods that conflict with traditional norms.”

Echoing the opinions of the developers interviewed above, one senior developer at Microsoft has found that juniors are hungry for opportunity and may just need some guidance and opportunity as they navigate this shift:

As we will see, these traits may prime this new generation of developers to find success in a changing world - even if it doesn’t feel like it currently.

If juniors and seniors alike are going to find success moving forward, they will need to adapt to the organizational shifts that are happening and the skills these shifts may be pointing to.

Let’s take a look at what is happening at the organizational level and the changing job demands that are affecting this shift:

Upskilling and Reskilling in the New Age

As AI capabilities continue to advance, organizations are experiencing a profound shift in their operational dynamics and workforce needs. The introduction of new AI technologies is driving changes that go beyond simply enhancing productivity or automating routine tasks.

They are shifting what a “career” in software development really looks like. They are reshaping how work is approached. And, they are changing the skills required to excel in the modern workplace.

As Dr. Rijmenam, an innovation expert and strategic futurist, tells us:

A key takeaway here is a pivot to change management. As we will see, there is a clear shift across the board at leading companies for this type of initiative, which involves being able to respond more quickly to the changes in skills and demand that are happening faster than ever before.

The New Multi-Functional Career Path

According to the World Economic Forum, the average half-life of skills is now less than five years, and in some tech fields, it’s as low as two and a half years.

In addition, they state that analytical and creative thinking skills, as well as AI and big data expertise, will be in high demand.

This high rate of change is projected to result in the dissolution and creation of various new job titles in the coming years as organizations continue to learn how to adjust to the new normal. This may require organizations to adopt change management programs that can help employees transition smoothly into these new roles and ensure that hiring initiatives focus on more than just coding proficiency.

A key aspect of these change management initiatives will include an increase in resources dedicated to “upskilling” and “reskilling”, which help employees adapt to new changes in technology and its effects on organizations. This will effectively enable employees to potentially shift between multiple positions throughout their careers, leading to the “multi-functional career path” we mentioned.

In a recent article posted by the Harvard Business Review, they highlight the dominant trend of upskilling and reskilling in the age of AI. In this piece, they discuss the importance of change management initiatives, and how many companies are now focusing on how they can effectively build a workforce that can be reskilled as new skills and job titles present themselves.

“...most of the companies we spoke with have moved beyond that narrow approach and now recognize reskilling as a strategic imperative… (the) shift reflects profound changes in the labor market, which is increasingly constrained by the aging of the working population, the emergence of new occupations, and an increasing need for employees to develop company-specific skills.”

So what does “reskill” refer to? It refers to the ability of a worker to be trained in a related or different field, or in one of their “skill adjacencies”.

With the above quote from Dr. Rijmenam in mind, this is how companies are aiming to align AI and new tech integration with human adaptation.

One effective approach is leveraging "skill adjacencies" — finding areas where employees’ existing skills can be adapted to meet new demands. For example, a software developer might be well-suited for a transition into roles involving AI development or data analysis, given the overlap in technical ability.

Or, someone who has experience in innovation, management, and organizational agility may be trained in data science or core programming languages.

However, while technical skills are crucial, human-relevant skills such as adaptability, creativity, emotional intelligence, problem-solving, and even psychology proficiency are becoming increasingly important. Possessing these skills may help to improve a worker’s ability to chart a new path forward that is not dependent on certainty and fixed-trajectory career paths.

Employees who possess personality traits that favor learning, such as curiosity and resilience, tend to transition more quickly and easily into new positions - a favorable trait for maintaining talent for the long term amidst an unpredictable market!

These traits allow individuals to remain flexible in the face of uncertainty and embrace the continuous learning necessary in today’s dynamic workplace.

It will also prepare them to be a good match for the new hiring trends we are currently experiencing. According to an AEI article called, “The Age of Uncertainty—and Opportunity: Work in the Age of AI” one of the most important of these trends involves how companies are aiming to acquire and retain top talent. According to the article,

“Companies are increasingly adopting flexible hiring models to efficiently scale their teams in response to changing project needs. The answer lies in promoting education, training, and reskilling that recognize the structural challenges workers will face while empowering them to find their own way in a fast-changing labor market.”

They add -

“Uncertainty is our only certainty when it comes to AI and the future of work.”

The adaptability quotient model, from Jessica Lopez, Career Coach and HR + Management Specialist

With this in mind, HR leaders should focus not only on technical training but also on fostering these traits through development programs that promote both personal growth and adaptability. They may also do so by engaging in hiring practices that search for candidates who come from non-traditional backgrounds and who present unique combinations of developer literacy, relevant character traits, and creative project execution.

Some key concerns that the experts over at AEI mention include:

• Integrate technical and noncognitive skills development
• Emphasize flexibility in retraining
• Improve training guidance
• Empower workers

They emphasize that when it comes to facilitating these transitions, it is definitely not a one-size-fits-all solution.

“These interventions are flexible and can be tailored to the needs of individual workers, who may benefit from temporary financial assistance, relevant and up-to-date labor market information, career advice and counseling, reskilling opportunities, and other transitional support.”

According to Jeff Dean, Google’s chief scientist officer:

“Every time we scale things up, things get better...all of a sudden, new capabilities emerge or the accuracy of some problem reaches a threshold, where before it was kind of unusable and now all of a sudden it becomes usable, and that enables new kinds of things.”

When AI uncovers a new pathway to success or enables one of these “new kinds of things”, this may signal the need for reskilling initiatives.

For example, Infosys has retrained over 2,000 employees in cybersecurity, and Amazon has used its Machine Learning University to turn workers with little AI experience into machine learning experts. These efforts highlight the growing trend of businesses investing in employee development to meet future needs.

The HBR article mentions how a recent report from BCG found that only 24% of companies link their reskilling efforts directly to their corporate strategy. While HR leaders play a key role in driving reskilling initiatives, these efforts will require the entire organization to buy-in and adopt a collective understanding of the needs and goals of these programs.

If employees and leadership alike don't understand how reskilling supports the company's long-term goals, it becomes difficult to sustain the level of commitment and cooperation necessary for success.

For reskilling to truly work, it should be seen as a critical, long-term strategy that requires not just HR teams but also leadership from across the organization to play an active role in preparing the workforce for the future.

Now that we can see that organizations are starting to switch to a more dynamic, change-oriented approach to hiring and training their workforce, we can see how junior developers may need to adapt their approach and leave behind the idealistic view of a coding-only focused career.

As we saw earlier from research by Matthew Beane, junior workers may need to lean into their innate skills to succeed.

“When it comes to emerging technologies like generative AI, these younger professionals are the ones who dive into experimenting with them first,” said Kellogg. “They’re ultimately looked to by upper management as being sources of expertise, even though they aren’t experts on the new risks that generative AI poses because of its uncertain capabilities and exponential rate of change.”

They also tell us that:

“Simply expecting younger working professionals to learn to use AI tools through trial and error and pass their tips and tricks on to senior professionals is not going to bridge the learning gap required for effective implementation of generative AI,” Kellogg said.

“...professionals and leaders need to experiment with changes to generative AI data, models, and infrastructure in addition to changes to human routines. And they need to mitigate generative AI risks not only at the project level, but also at the firm level.”

As they go on to explain in the MIT article, the solution lies in a collaborative approach that encompasses juniors helping with experimentation while simultaneously working with seniors who can bring wider perspectives of systems design and organizational context.

One thing we found on message boards and social media, though, is that the community seems to be at odds with learning new things without understanding the benefits of doing so.

One back-and-forth seemed to capture this perfectly:

We can see that it will be important for both juniors to be open to learning new things, but it may be equally important for hiring teams and organizational leaders to make sure that their workers understand the motives for doing so.

So, if our junior developer friends can read between the lines here, they will notice that things are not static anymore. As much as they may hate it, change is going to be a constant in the careers of anyone in the industry moving forward.

If they can adjust their mindset and prepare for these shifts early on, they may just be able to reach the calm, cool, and confident state of our friend from LinkedIn:

The Bottom Line

To wrap this up, things seem to be pointing to a fluid new approach in the market where key skills are not long lists of acronyms and school titles, but human-oriented skills that point to an ability to adapt and contribute real value to organizational demands for the long-term.

HR professionals should understand that AI integration requires not only tech skills but also emotional intelligence, critical thinking, systems design knowledge, and leadership. Juniors need to understand that software development is not just an easy-in career that ends after you get out of school - it is one that will require real dedication, focus, and a passion for contributing real value to your team.

Perhaps most importantly, it requires everyone in the industry to embrace the uncertainty we find ourselves in the midst of and to make peace with it.

🙂

Just so we don’t end on such a dramatic note - here is a helpful guide that provides a roadmap for junior developers from Alex Xu, best-selling author on System Design and co-founder of ByteByteGo: