Hiring Junior Developers in the AI Era and what 400+ Applications Taught Me

So we recently opened a junior developer position at our company, and honestly, I was not ready for what happened next. Within 24 hours, the job post had over 400 applications. Four hundred. In a single day. I had to take a step back and process what was going on.

But the application volume wasn't even the biggest surprise. What really caught me off guard was how much our hiring criteria had shifted, and how fast it all happened.

It Used to Be About the Stack

Not too long ago, when we were hiring junior devs, the checklist was pretty straightforward. Do you know JavaScript? How comfortable are you with TypeScript? Have you worked with Vue.js? That's our stack, so naturally, we wanted people who could hit the ground running with it. Framework mastery and specific language proficiency were the things we looked for first.

And that made sense. If you're building with Vue 3, you want someone who at least understands the reactivity model, knows how the Composition API works, and doesn't panic when they see a .vue file.

But you know what? That playbook has changed. Fast.

What We Actually Look For Now

With AI-assisted and agentic coding becoming a real part of the development workflow, the skills that matter have shifted. We're now looking at things we used to treat as "nice to have" and putting them front and center.

Logic and problem-solving ability.

Can you break down a problem? Can you think through edge cases? Can you look at an AI-generated output and tell me if the logic is sound or if it's confidently wrong? That matters more now than knowing the exact syntax for a Vue directive.

Attention to detail.

And I don't just mean in code. I mean everything. When I review a CV and I see typos, inconsistent formatting, or copy-paste remnants from a template, that tells me something. If you're not eagle-eyed about the small stuff in your own application, how will you catch subtle bugs in AI-generated code that looks correct at first glance but isn't?

Core computer science fundamentals.

Data structures, algorithms, how the web actually works, basic networking concepts, understanding of state management as a principle and not just as a library. These things are becoming the differentiator. Specific framework mastery? AI can help you bridge that gap in minutes. But if you don't understand why something works, no amount of AI assistance will save you.

It's wild to say this, but specific stack mastery just doesn't carry the same weight anymore. What matters is whether you can think, reason, and catch things that AI can't catch for itself.

400+ Applications and What That Might Mean

Now about that 400+ number. I don't have historical data to compare it against, so take this with a grain of salt. These are my assumptions and observations, not hard conclusions.

But it feels like the junior developer job market has flipped. The demand for junior roles seems lower than before, possibly because companies are realizing that AI tools can handle a lot of the tasks that used to be assigned to juniors. Bug fixes, boilerplate code, simple feature implementations, writing tests. These were the bread and butter of junior dev work, and now a senior dev with Cursor or Claude Code can knock them out without needing an extra pair of hands.

If that's the case, then the supply of unemployed or underemployed fresh graduates is probably stacking up. And that breaks my heart a little, because these are talented people who did everything right. They went to school, they studied hard, they graduated. But the landscape shifted under their feet while they were still in the classroom.

Our Education System Wasn't Ready (And That's Understandable)

Here's where my feelings get mixed. Part of me wants to be frustrated with the education system for not preparing students for this reality. Curricula are still teaching the same patterns from five years ago. Students graduate knowing how to write a for-loop and build a CRUD app, but they don't know how to prompt an AI agent effectively, how to review AI-generated code critically, or how to think about systems at a higher abstraction level.

But then I remind myself, this all happened so fast. Like, insanely fast. Two years ago, agentic coding wasn't even a mainstream concept. You can't really blame universities for not having a curriculum ready for something that barely existed when those students enrolled. The pace of change in AI has outrun everyone, not just schools, but companies, hiring managers, and entire industries.

So yeah, I'm not pointing fingers. I'm just acknowledging the gap. And more importantly, I want to talk about how to close it.

How to Stay Competitive as a Junior Developer

If you're a fresh grad or a junior dev reading this and feeling anxious, here's my honest advice.

Double down on fundamentals.

Frameworks come and go. Languages evolve. But logic, data structures, algorithms, and understanding how systems work? Those are forever. If you can reason about a problem clearly, you'll be valuable regardless of what tools exist.

Get comfortable with AI tools, but don't depend on them blindly.

Learn how to use Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, whatever. But more importantly, learn how to evaluate what they produce. The developers who will thrive are the ones who can partner with AI, not the ones who just accept its output without question.

Be eagle-eyed about everything.

Train yourself to notice details. Review your own CV like a code review. Check your commit messages. Read error logs carefully. This sounds basic, but it's becoming a real differentiator. In a world where AI generates a lot of the code, the human's job is to be the quality gate.

Build something real.

I don't care if it's small. Deploy it. Put it on GitHub. Write about what you learned. When I see a candidate who has shipped something, even something tiny, that tells me they can take an idea from zero to done. That's worth more than a certificate.

Learn how to communicate.

Write clearly. Explain your thinking. Document your work. In agentic coding workflows, a huge part of the job is giving good instructions and reviewing outputs. That's a communication skill as much as it's a technical one.

Contribute to open source.

You know I had to say it. 🤣 But seriously, even small contributions matter. Fix a typo in docs, report a well-written bug, submit a small PR. It shows initiative, it builds your network, and it teaches you how real-world codebases work. And yeah, shameless plug, check out OSSPH if you're a Filipino dev looking for a community to start with.

This Isn't the End, It's a Shift (HOPEFULLY 🤞)

I don't think junior developers are going away. But the role is evolving. The juniors who will get hired are the ones who can think critically, pay attention to detail, and work with AI effectively. It's less about what you've memorized and more about how you think.

To every junior dev out there grinding through the job search, I see you. It's tough out there right now. But the fundamentals never go out of style, and the ones who adapt will come out stronger.

Keep building. Keep learning. And for the love of everything, proofread your CV.

P.S. If you're a junior developer looking for a job, DM me so I can set you up a technical interview exam with my team.