AI makes you feel like you no longer need junior engineers, but stopping hiring will hand over the company's control.

An article on evalcode.com that has sparked widespread discussion in the engineering community points out that the logic of "AI can do the work of junior engineers, so stop hiring junior engineers" is causing companies to hand over their entire personnel leverage to senior staff. (Previous coverage: Commentary: All vibe coding tools are selling the illusion of getting rich quick) (Background: No coding skills needed to win! He swept 200 hackathons using AI "Vibe Coding") AI replaces the work of junior engineers, so there is no need to hire junior engineers anymore. This logic sounds reasonable until you ask one question: where do your senior engineers come from? An article on the engineering evaluation platform evalcode.com hits this logical loophole head-on. The author's argument is not that "we have a moral obligation to cultivate the next generation," nor that "junior engineers contribute to corporate culture"—these are not things a CFO cares about. He is talking about control: by stopping the recruitment of junior engineers, you are handing over your company's personnel leverage entirely to your senior engineers. Senior engineers are valuable. They possess technical accumulation, product context, cross-departmental relationships, and the tacit knowledge that keeps the entire system running. Because of this, they have the leverage to negotiate their salaries. The article outlines that critical moment: a senior engineer says, "I want a 40% raise, or I'm leaving." How a company responds depends entirely on whether it has alternatives. If there is a pipeline of mid-level engineers growing behind them who can step up, the company can negotiate calmly; losing this person would be painful, but not fatal. If not—because you stopped hiring juniors three years ago and now have no one in the growth pipeline—you have no bargaining chips. You only have two choices: accept the 40% raise, or spend six months plus a headhunter fee to find a replacement at a higher market rate. Junior engineers don't just do junior work. They are the future mid-level and senior engineers, growing with organizational context that can only be cultivated internally. The article points out: "Every junior position you don't hire for today is a senior talent you will have to buy at a premium three years from now." The article uses an example from outside the tech world: the wave of small business closures happening in the US. These businesses failed not because of market competition, but because the owners retired and no one took over. They spent decades without investing in succession mechanisms, and when it was time to exit, the business simply vanished. The apprenticeship system has existed for centuries not because "masters have a moral obligation to cultivate the next generation," but as a survival mechanism: without apprentices, the craft disappears after the master retires. Every generation of skilled workers must produce the next. Software engineering faces the same logic. The article points to a real-world example: try hiring a COBOL engineer in the market today. COBOL was a mainstream language decades ago, and the talent pipeline was cut off long ago; the few remaining engineers set their own rates, and they get whatever they ask for. Proponents of "AI replacing junior engineers" are repeating the same mistake in an accelerated version. Stop hiring juniors in 2026, and by 2030, companies will be facing a senior team that is expensive and lacks successors. Among these people, some will leave for better offers, some will burn out, and some will simply decide to quit... and you will have no backup. The article also directly counters the most common rebuttal: "What if AI eventually replaces all engineering work?" The author's answer is: no one is actually arguing that. The claim that "AI replaces junior engineers" still presupposes that senior engineers are necessary. So where do senior engineers come from? They don't appear out of thin air; they grow from junior engineers. The article's sharpest observation is here. Software engineering is one of the few professions where FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) is truly feasible. A senior engineer who bought a house ten years ago, accumulated stock options in a public company, and whose lifestyle hasn't inflated in tandem with their salary has a fundamentally different negotiating position than someone still struggling to save money. They are working not because they have to, but because they want to. This changes all the mechanics. When someone who needs a paycheck asks for a raise, it's a negotiation where both sides have something to lose. When someone who is financially independent makes the same demand, it's a notification, not a negotiation. When they say "I'm leaving," they aren't bluffing; they can retire directly to the beach and write open-source code. You have no bargaining chips in your hand. Now imagine your entire senior engineering team is composed this way, with no growing junior pipeline behind them. You aren