Junior Devs are Letting AI Do the Heavy Lifting—But at What Cost?
Using AI for coding is a double-edged sword. While tools like Cursor or GitHub Copilot and chatbots like Claude or ChatGPT can help write code faster, they also come with hallucinations and errors, making the use of generated code in production risky. Junior developers, hired amid this coding revolution, often fail to grasp the issue or ignore it in a bid to complete tasks faster. A Reddit thread recently highlighted concerns from senior engineers who see both the potential and pitfalls of AI reliance in development. It is almost like copying and pasting code without understanding the meaning behind the code. A senior engineer shared his experience with two junior developers on Reddit. While one used AI responsibly—like a ‘search engine that doesn’t get mad at you’—the other seemed to rely entirely on AI for generating code, often copying and pasting without reviewing or understanding it. The results included ‘robotic, but technically correct code’ and occasional nonsensical snippets like a for-loop doing absolutely nothing. This over-reliance on AI led to recurring issues in code reviews. As the engineer noted, “I wouldn’t have issues if I didn’t make repeat comments like, ‘I’m not sure what you’re trying to do here?’ and then getting a response like, ‘idk, I’ll remove this.’” Copy, Paste, Move-on? Before tools like ChatGPT became developers’ trusty assistants, they would often head to Stack Overflow with their doubts and copy-paste the responses. The now-senior developers, who were getting started with coding back then, are the ones guilty of this crime. Speaking with AIM, Adarsh Shirawalmath, CEO of Tensoic and an experienced programmer, said that overreliance on such tools is not good for developers. “I don’t think they overuse the tools, but they use them often without understanding what the output code is,” Shirawalmath said. He added that the practice was rampant and could become a problem for the companies these people worked at. “Sometimes ChatGPT’s responses are hallucinations, and the model is so confident in its answer; it’s tough to debug when something goes wrong,” he added. However, companies cannot ban the use of AI since they want to be part of the revolution. Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, earlier said that he believes developers are not using AI coding tools enough. He also said that writing code from scratch feels difficult after relying on AI coding tools. Hence, finding the right balance is the core issue for modern developers. Siddharth Sharma, former CTO of Shaadi.com, cancelled his Cursor subscription as it was negatively affecting his thought process. “In general, I found the LLM never pointed to a refactoring that would make the code less verbose. And this was painful as it happened. It is going to be 10 times more painful in teams and large codebases,” he warned. This has led to many companies being critical of their employees using AI tools. A major reason behind Indian companies’ cautious approach to using AI coding tools is privacy. Many fear that these tools, especially those developed by large corporations, might expose sensitive or proprietary code to third parties. What Can Senior Developers Do? The Reddit thread had reactions pouring in from developers who shared similar frustrations. One commenter emphasised the importance of intentionality in coding: “You have to know why it’s the right answer; otherwise, you’re deluding yourself.” Many advised senior developers to address such behaviours in private 1:1 discussions to stress the need for understanding the “why” behind the code. “People attempting to merge code into main that they may be ‘kinda sorta’ half understand why it works is legitimately frightening,” a developer added. Adithya S Kolavi, founder of Cognitive Labs, told AIM that he had seen a lot of junior developers using AI tools, and there is always a risk of overreliance on such tools. “When I explore a new technology, I prefer taking the traditional route—reading documentation, exploring forums, and deeply understanding the concepts. I do use AI as a learning tool, like a virtual mentor, to clarify doubts or explain concepts, but not to generate entire blocks of code,” said Kolavi. He added that blindly relying on AI to write code without understanding the underlying technology can be detrimental. “I’ve seen situations where developers get stuck in a frustrating loop—asking AI to generate code, receiving incorrect or misleading output, and then repeatedly prompting it to fix itself, only to waste time running in circles,” Kolavi added. Several developers, fresh out of college and learning to code with AI, are also unable to land jobs due to this. While it is fine to get the help of AI coding tools to learn how to code, overreliance is where the issue begins. “Wake me up when companies start hiring these clueless modern ‘developers’,” said Santiago Valdarrama, founder of Tideily and an ML teacher. Andrej Karpathy, founder of Eureka Labs, had once accepted that coding with AI led him to introduce new bugs. “It’s slightly too convenient to just have it do things and move on when it seems to work,” he said. Meanwhile, it has been reiterated that using AI for coding would turn developers into 10x developers. Many seasoned developers agreed that using AI isn’t inherently wrong—it can speed up development and help solve complex problems. However, juniors must take the responsibility for reviewing and understanding the output. “I go line by line through each code snippet, understand it, and adjust where needed,” advised a developer. Senior engineers in the thread warned that juniors relying excessively on AI are not only stunting their own growth but also creating long-term issues for their teams. One contributor shared a hard decision they faced. “I had a junior doing this. They kept doing it after repeated warnings. Firing anyone sucks, but I was going to lose my best people if I kept him on.”
Senior engineers warn that juniors relying excessively on AI are not only stunting their own growth but also creating long-term issues for their teams.
Junior developers, hired amid this AI coding revolution, often fail to grasp the issues or ignore them in a bid to complete tasks faster.
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Mohit writes about AI in simple, explainable, and often funny words. He's especially passionate about chatting with those building AI for Bharat, with the occasional detour into AGI.