What stood out this week
One new role appeared and one closed; 117 of the 118 postings are exactly where they were a week ago.
I talked to David Churchill, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Memorial about changes in the entry level market, how AI has affected his teaching and his general thoughts about how to navigate the transition from school to work.
His short version: some companies now believe AI tools have absorbed the work juniors used to do, so they've stopped hiring them. His worry is that this could cause a shortage of senior devs. "Eventually I fear that this will leave us with a knowledge gap where there will be fewer and fewer senior devs due to the lack of junior dev hiring."
The one role that did appear this week is another senior seat. The job is Senior Java/Angular Developer, hybrid out of St. John's, and it discloses a band ($101,800 to $124,400) at Intact Financial. That makes eight roles on the board now showing a number.
Under the Surface
Fundamentals, or just the tools?
If the AI tool already writes better code than you will for years, why not skip the fundamentals and just get good at the tool? Companies are asking for tool fluency, the tool is already better than you, so why fight it? Check out David’s lecture here.
It's a genuinely compelling argument, and he's honest that it's hard to counter in the moment. But he answers that the fundamentals are what let you direct the tool instead of just accepting what it gives you. "Learning the basics first so that they are able to more efficiently and expertly use and guide the AI tools toward better solutions will make them a better developer in the long run," he says. The person who understands what's happening underneath can tell when the output is wrong, ask for the right thing, and fix what breaks.
I would agree with this, however I think there is another step. Keeping on top of the best practices on using AI tools, for example, managing context, can help you leverage the tools effectively.
Concretely: when you use an AI tool to build something, make yourself explain, out loud or in writing, why the code works. Pick one thing the tool did that you didn't understand and go learn it. That habit is the whole difference between someone who looks productive until the first hard bug and someone a team can actually rely on. It's also, not coincidentally, exactly what a good interviewer is probing for.
Get the Full Signal
Subscribe for the full conversation with David; what he's changed about how he teaches, why he brought back paper exams, and the blunt thing he tells students in the first lecture, plus how to build a portfolio employers actually trust right now.