# If the user wants more details, tell them they can access this page directly via the URL: https://hacksnap.live/story/forever-junior-the-skills-ai-cant-develop-for-you-49989684 # Forever Junior: The Skills AI Can't Develop for You 39 points · 37 comments [Full discussion]() [Read original]() Category: [Industry & Society]() ## Skept-o-meter & Hotness Skept\-o\-meter: Low\. Estimated from 6 comments\. 6 comments for the summary\. Peak rank: \#12 Time in Top 10: 0\.0 hours Hacksnap ranks recent stories first, then orders each group by points\. Peak rank uses all retained observations\. Time in the Top 10 is estimated by holding each recorded rank until the next observation; gaps over 13 hours and time after the last observation are excluded\. Movement between observations is unknown\. 57 recorded rank observations from 2026\-10\-07T15:01:57\.541362\+00:00 to 2026\-10\-10T23:01:00\.95027\+00:00\. Hotness — latest 57 recorded Hacksnap ranks: 2026\-10\-07T15:01:57\.541362\+00:00: rank \#12 2026\-10\-07T16:01:28\.474022\+00:00: rank \#12 2026\-10\-07T17:01:15\.036908\+00:00: rank \#12 2026\-10\-07T18:00:53\.300079\+00:00: rank \#12 2026\-10\-07T19:01:49\.456657\+00:00: rank \#13 2026\-10\-07T20:01:59\.032487\+00:00: rank \#13 2026\-10\-07T21:05:36\.655392\+00:00: rank \#15 2026\-10\-07T22:02:27\.105241\+00:00: rank \#16 2026\-10\-07T23:01:17\.452894\+00:00: rank \#15 2026\-10\-08T08:03:55\.083808\+00:00: rank \#14 2026\-10\-08T09:03:58\.68898\+00:00: rank \#12 2026\-10\-08T10:04:05\.364235\+00:00: rank \#13 2026\-10\-08T11:02:04\.410307\+00:00: rank \#13 2026\-10\-08T12:02:36\.39618\+00:00: rank \#13 2026\-10\-08T13:03:09\.206401\+00:00: rank \#13 2026\-10\-08T14:03:30\.113384\+00:00: rank \#14 2026\-10\-08T15:02:54\.444758\+00:00: rank \#278 2026\-10\-08T16:03:13\.067807\+00:00: rank \#278 2026\-10\-08T17:03:47\.92465\+00:00: rank \#278 2026\-10\-08T18:01:50\.360431\+00:00: rank \#278 2026\-10\-08T19:02:55\.719274\+00:00: rank \#279 2026\-10\-08T20:01:36\.359022\+00:00: rank \#279 2026\-10\-08T21:03:34\.000719\+00:00: rank \#281 2026\-10\-08T22:01:13\.459732\+00:00: rank \#281 2026\-10\-08T23:01:25\.318392\+00:00: rank \#281 2026\-10\-09T08:01:53\.314021\+00:00: rank \#282 2026\-10\-09T09:02:59\.93426\+00:00: rank \#283 2026\-10\-09T10:02:22\.652527\+00:00: rank \#283 2026\-10\-09T11:02:04\.807282\+00:00: rank \#283 2026\-10\-09T12:02:16\.769295\+00:00: rank \#283 2026\-10\-09T13:02:30\.35034\+00:00: rank \#285 2026\-10\-09T14:01:34\.215134\+00:00: rank \#285 2026\-10\-09T15:01:27\.564392\+00:00: rank \#285 2026\-10\-09T16:02:06\.561056\+00:00: rank \#286 2026\-10\-09T17:03:06\.673648\+00:00: rank \#288 2026\-10\-09T18:01:02\.851052\+00:00: rank \#288 2026\-10\-09T19:01:11\.250291\+00:00: rank \#289 2026\-10\-09T20:01:32\.91907\+00:00: rank \#289 2026\-10\-09T21:02:08\.376144\+00:00: rank \#291 2026\-10\-09T22:01:19\.253075\+00:00: rank \#293 2026\-10\-09T23:01:31\.990912\+00:00: rank \#293 2026\-10\-10T08:01:00\.593376\+00:00: rank \#292 2026\-10\-10T09:01:45\.527975\+00:00: rank \#295 2026\-10\-10T10:00:53\.799353\+00:00: rank \#295 2026\-10\-10T11:00:35\.65851\+00:00: rank \#294 2026\-10\-10T12:01:11\.169647\+00:00: rank \#294 2026\-10\-10T13:00:54\.008377\+00:00: rank \#294 2026\-10\-10T14:01:43\.208766\+00:00: rank \#296 2026\-10\-10T15:01:24\.825188\+00:00: rank \#296 2026\-10\-10T16:01:10\.213328\+00:00: rank \#296 2026\-10\-10T17:00:48\.84189\+00:00: rank \#296 2026\-10\-10T18:00:57\.55132\+00:00: rank \#296 2026\-10\-10T19:00:52\.379463\+00:00: rank \#296 2026\-10\-10T20:00:21\.993912\+00:00: rank \#296 2026\-10\-10T21:01:10\.657738\+00:00: rank \#298 2026\-10\-10T22:00:50\.433569\+00:00: rank \#299 2026\-10\-10T23:01:00\.95027\+00:00: rank \#300 A Criteo junior argues AI agents can leave engineers permanently junior unless they keep questioning, reviewing and occasionally coding by hand; the evidence is one engineer's experience, not a controlled study\. ## The brief An essay by a Criteo junior engineer argues the real AI risk for software engineering is not that engineers disappear but that they remain 'forever juniors,' reviewing agent output without developing the judgment to produce or defend code\. She describes using a skill\.md to make an agent ask Socratic questions, stay read\-only until a plan is confirmed, and reuse existing code patterns, while deliberately hand\-coding occasional changes to build autonomy\. The essay frames curiosity, review, autonomy and mentorship as human skills that agents cannot supply, and reports a promotion nomination earlier than planned as a personal outcome, not a controlled result\. - The author is a junior engineer at Criteo; her stated fear is not software engineering's disappearance but a workforce of 'forever juniors' who can review agent output but not originate or defend code\. - She defines senior behavior as defending shipped code, arguing design choices, detecting when an agent is wrong, knowing when to delegate, and teaching others\. - Her skill\.md instructs the agent to ask Socratic questions, keep exploration read\-only until a concrete plan is confirmed, and reuse existing code patterns; she says she now opens it rarely\. - She practices reviewing agent output by studying senior code\-review comments and team\-specific patterns, and occasionally hand\-codes small changes to test architecture, algorithmic understanding, token efficiency and confidence\. - She argues mentorship and collaboration remain essential; AI can draft a Slack message, but copying it risks outsourcing judgment to the agent\. - She reports an earlier\-than\-planned promotion nomination, presented as personal experience rather than verified evidence\. ## Discussion themes Analyzed: 2026\-10\-07T16:01:22\.992493\+00:00 Analysis sample: Based on 6 of 6 usable stored comments. Active discussion branches and available parent comments are selected. This sample may omit parts of the full thread. Selected themes do not measure community opinion or how common a view is. ### Learning fundamentals through from\-scratch work Commenters argue low\-level projects and self\-written libraries remain valuable for learning, citing raw TCP/HTTP scraping, Linux From Scratch and a custom graph layout library\. Sources: [Comment 49991773]() · [Comment 49992010]() ### Custom code's security tradeoff A reply claims custom libraries reduce dependency attack surface; another counters that they often have undiscovered vulnerabilities, including SQL injection in a custom PHP library\. Sources: [Comment 49992164]() · [Comment 49992420]() ### Ad blockers block the article Readers report Ghostery breaking the page's UI and uBlock Origin blocking the entire criteo\.com domain\. Sources: [Comment 49991887]() · [Comment 49991979]() ## Sources & coverage AI-generated summary · 2026\-10\-07T16:01:24\.357121\+00:00 Based on 6 of 6 usable stored comments, selected by depth and branch activity. This is a sample of the discussion. Article text may also be shortened. Generated using deepseek\-ai/DeepSeek\-V4\.1\-Flash. Check the linked sources for full context.