Over the past year, I've watched a lot of engineering teams go through the same adoption pattern with AI tools. They start using GitHub Copilot or Claude. Productivity goes up. And then someone in a meeting asks the question: "Do we still need as many junior developers?"
I think that question reveals exactly the wrong mental model.
The teams getting the most value from AI tools aren't the ones who figured out what AI can automate. They're the ones who figured out what AI should automate, and then designed their workflows around that distinction.
That sounds like a small difference. It isn't.
Most of the debate around AI and junior developers focuses on the wrong question: can AI do what juniors do? In a previous article, I explored why that question leads teams in the wrong direction. In another, I looked at what happens when organizations quietly remove the work juniors need to grow. This article is about what the best teams actually do instead.
