According to Futurism, recent graduates from top universities, including Stanford, are struggling to find entry-level software engineering jobs. A Los Angeles Times report quotes Stanford bioengineering professor Jan Liphardt saying “Stanford computer science graduates are struggling to find entry-level jobs” at major tech firms. The prevailing idea in hiring is that for every ten programmers, companies now only need two, plus a large language model. Amr Awadallah, CEO of AI startup Vectara, bluntly stated, “The AI now can code better than the average junior developer… We don’t need the junior developers anymore.” In response, graduates are taking jobs they previously considered beneath them, founding startups, or pursuing advanced degrees.
The Productivity Paradox
Here’s the thing: the narrative that AI is simply replacing juniors hits a major snag when you look at the data. One study from earlier this year found that when developers use AI tools to code, it actually makes them 19 percent slower. That’s the complete opposite of what everyone predicted. And another report by Vanguard found that the top 100 occupations most exposed to AI automation are actually outperforming the rest of the labor market in wage and job growth. So what gives? It suggests AI is enhancing productivity for existing workers, not neatly deleting entry-level positions. The problem isn’t that the work has vanished; it’s that the pathway in has gotten much, much narrower.
It’s Not The Tech, It’s The Economics
This is where it gets frustrating. The technology might be a tool for augmentation, but the economic incentives are driving substitution. As technology analyst Morten Rand-Hendriksen put it, “AI can’t replace people, but it can create short-term financial gain at the cost of long-term skill- and knowledge loss.” Think about it. Why hire and train a crop of new talent when you can ask your current team to “do more with AI” and pocket the difference? It’s a brutal calculus that prioritizes immediate shareholder returns over building a sustainable talent pipeline. The “dreary mood” on campus isn’t just about a tough job market; it’s a generation realizing the game has been fundamentally changed right as they were about to start playing.
A Broken On-Ramp
So where does this leave us? We’re creating a dangerous bottleneck. If the best and brightest from Stanford can’t get a foot in the door, what chance does anyone else have? This isn’t just a tech industry problem—it’s a warning. The foundational experience of learning by doing alongside senior engineers is being eroded. Companies might save money now, but they’re mortgaging their future innovation. They’ll have a workforce of mid-level engineers who never had to mentor anyone, and a missing generation below them. The skills gap won’t close; it’ll become a canyon. And honestly, if the economic system only sees human labor as a cost to be minimized by any tool available, then AI was never the problem to begin with.
