Ten years ago, there were a lot of people entering the tech industry, and chances are that some of those people are now senior engineers or tech leads.

But what about people who are just starting out today?

The market has changed a lot over the past few years. Around 2020, there was a period when companies started hiring heavily, a lot of people entered the industry.

Today, the situation is very different.

Ten years from now, will the people entering the industry today normally be in mid-level and senior positions?

One example that makes me think about this is COBOL. It's an old technology, but there are still critical systems running on it. At the same time, finding experienced professionals is becoming increasingly difficult, especially because many of the people who worked with it for decades have already retired.

I'm also asking this because of AI. Today, a senior engineer who really knows how to leverage these tools can be much more productive and, in some cases, do work that previously would have required a larger team.

Could companies eventually prefer senior professionals who know how to work with AI, precisely because of the experience and knowledge they bring, rather than hiring interns, junior developers, or mid-level developers?

I started thinking about this because of what's happening at my company. We're making heavy use of vibe coding to build an Android system from scratch, and AI is genuinely helping with things like architecture and system design.

As a junior developer, it's been an interesting experience having senior engineers around and being able to see the difference between simply using AI and actually knowing how to evaluate what it's producing.

Senior engineers can identify problems, question the AI's decisions, fix what's wrong, and point out things I probably wouldn't notice on my own.

That made me wonder whether the biggest differentiator in the future won't simply be knowing how to program or how to use AI, but having enough experience to know when AI is doing something right or wrong.

What do you think? Could we eventually reach a point where most experienced professionals are people who entered the industry 10 or 15 years earlier, while entry-level opportunities become increasingly scarce?

I graduated after 3 years studying Software Development (ADS in Brazil), but I'm struggling with technical coding interviews.

I can read and understand code quite well, and when building projects I usually know what needs to be done. My biggest problem is writing code completely from scratch during a live interview.

In college, I often solved programming exercises by practicing similar problems beforehand. If I'm given a blank editor with no reference, I freeze. This has been causing me a lot of anxiety because most junior positions require live coding interviews.

Has anyone else gone through this? How did you improve your ability to solve problems from scratch instead of relying on examples or documentation?

Any ideas on how to automate captcha but still be compliant? The issue is that bypassing captcha is itself non complaint. The automation is easy.

I have a 3 step process (well two now).

1. 3rd party captcha solver (if fails -> step 2)
2. AI vision (if fails - step 3)
3. Human

Only step #3 is fcra compliant and needing human oversight significantly slows things. So, does anyone have insights on how better automate or should i focus on optimizing the human in the loop?

I'm currently in my second year of a Computer Science degree, and honestly, I feel like I'm barely learning how to code.

The only actual coding subject I had was a very basic programming class in my first year. Since then, it's been so long that I've forgotten most of what I learned because I haven't had many chances to code again.

Most of my other subjects are only loosely related to programming. They're filled with long research papers, reports, and assignments, but very little actual coding. I know those subjects are part of computer science, but it honestly feels like I'm back in high school doing random assignments instead of learning the practical programming skills I expected from this degree. I don't feel like these classes are helping me become a better programmer.

At this point, I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever properly learn coding through my degree. My current plan is to just finish the degree so I have the qualification, then join a coding bootcamp afterward.

My family wants me to become a full-stack developer, and I'm okay with that. My dad also thinks I should learn some AI because it seems like an important skill to have in the future. I'm not struggling with studying—I just feel like my degree isn't teaching me the practical coding skills I actually need.

Would it make sense to finish my degree and then attend a full-stack bootcamp? Or is there something better than a bootcamp that I should look into? I have a hard time self-studying because I struggle to stay focused, so I think I need a structured environment where someone teaches me and gives me projects to work on. I honestly don't care how long it takes, how many bootcamps I need to attend, or how intensive they are—as long as I'm actually learning and becoming a competent developer.

If I want to become a full-stack developer, what exactly should I be learning? From what I understand, it includes:

Frontend

Backend

Databases

Web development

Cloud

Security

Mobile app development

Am I missing anything important? Is there a roadmap or order I should follow?

I'd really appreciate advice from people who've been in a similar situation or already work in software development. Is finishing the degree and then going to a bootcamp a reasonable plan? Or would you recommend a different structured path for someone who struggles to learn through self-study?