Entry Level Positions of the Future

With the rising of AI and recent layoffs and frozen hires, the entry positions for recent CS graduates are increasingly seen as eventually obsolete. Entering CS through software-related subfields (e.g., software development, web development, etc.) is getting more difficult, as evidenced through the decline in employment for early-career workers. Simultaneously, 40% of employers say they plan to reduce staff in roles where AI can automate tasks. This combination fuels a perception that companies can increasingly rely on senior engineers working alongside AI agents, rather than investing in entry level hires. There are also push back from the other side, which warn against the possibility that without entry level positions, there can be no mid/senior levels in the future.

In this aspect, my view lays somewhere it between. Pragmatically speaking, if a business can shed an entry level position (or any position!) to cut cost, they will. While there are signs of the AI hype slowing down, it is undeniable that proper harness of AI will significantly improve productivity, and at the very least, will reduce the number of entry level positions needed. There is also the fact that mid/senior level people don’t fall from the sky, and they have to grow up from some other positions. The critical questions are then:

• What will entry position level in the future looks like if we assume mid/senior level positions are expected to be able to not just manage human teams but also commandeer AI agents?
• How will students position themselves to be competitive for these future entry level positions? More specifically, which fields/subfields should they be in?
• What to expect regarding the broken pipeline: entry to mid/senior level?

Entry-level position in the future

Regarding the first question, my answer is an analogy from Netflix SWAT (I am binging this one!): Imagine that instead of applying to be a patrol officer, you are dropped into SWAT training! The entry level position of the future will look for someone very well-rounded. Not just average well-rounded, but to cite “UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook”, a rabid jack of all trades. Another way to think about this through a cost-aware perspective is that instead of having a back-end and a front-end, companies will be looking for a back-end who can commandeer an agent to do 80% of the work of a front-end or vice versa. Furthermore, GPA or some minor hobby projects may no longer be enough. You are expected to hit the ground running, even at entry level. Therefore, near-production serious projects with in-depth technical considerations are needed.

How to be competitive in the future

Answering the second question is some what trickier, and my answer may be bias since I am a CS faculty. First, let’s target the initial concern regarding where mid/senior level positions can come from if there is no internal entry level? An obvious answer would be: external poaching from smaller external companies that have similar or adjacent technical stacks/products. These smaller companies, in turn, would still hire entry level positions, but their expectation will be raised, as reasoned above. For smaller companies, the amount of jack-of-all-trades overlapped will be higher and even spilling out onto non-technical aspects. As a result, my perspective for this answer are as follows:

• Regardless of your primary major, you will need to know how to use AI effectively as a minimum. It might be that you will need to even understand how AI works, and not just doing simple prompt engineering. This is evidenced through the recent survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
• If you are not pure CS, some knowledge of baseline CS/IT is needed under the form of a minor or a certificate, just so that you can effectively understand the vocabulary and fundamental concepts enough to get your AI agent to do the rest, and also to evaluate your AI’s final products.
• If you are pure CS, understanding both system and software sides is important. You might end up using AI and maintaining the infrastructures for your local AI agents. You will need to take your minor/gen-ed seriously and deliberately, not simply picking easy As. You might end up replacing your business analyst people altogether. I suspect that, with the rise of AI, understanding fundamental CS knowledge will become even more critical, so that you can assume roles that analyze, test, and validate AI-generated products.

Beware the broken pipeline

The above discussion brings up an important point mentioned in a Deloitte’s article: If entry level positions are hard to come by, then how does one cross that chasm? If, at entry-level position, you are drowning in low-level validation work, how do you move upward? Again, this goes back to a mindset of preparation since the college level. It does not matter what position you are in, be ready to train yourself to do things beyond the scope of your position’s core responsibilities. Be ready to expand from front-end to back-end, from technical to business, from testing and validation to code generation. Be ready to learn quickly, and be ready to take full advantage of AI to help you do so. This sounds just like a generic hustle culture, but given the current advancing technologies, this is simply a fact that we must accept. Deloitte’s survey shows that 61% of roles now require 2-5 years of experience. This effectively shifts the burden backward, pushing what used to be learned on the job into the undergraduate years. Of course, this pipeline risk also needs to be addressed from the companies’ side, but it is not my area of expertise, and I would rather my students prepare for the worst case scenario. If the companies do act, all the better.

In conclusion, while the recent hiring freeze/laying off can be viewed as the consequences of the economy slowing down and post-COVID over-hiring, it is undeniable that AI is making an impact that will change how companies and organizations operate, and subsequently hire new people. I believe that part of the hiring freeze would be a reorganization/redefinition of positions and tasks, and it is important that everyone of us pay attention and prepare for an AI-integrated future. The entry-level positions aren’t gone, they have been promoted. The question is how students and educators will catch up with that.