Who Killed the Junior Developer?
It is a tragedy of the commons scenario.  Everyone wants senior devs, who were at one point junior devs.<p>No one wants to train junior devs.  The OP points out why:<p>* cheaper to have juniorish work done overseas<p>* juniorish work is automated away<p>* juniors on a team slow it down (compared to a team of all seniors)<p>So everyone competes for the senior talent.<p>A more sophisticated long term analysis might look at the benefits to senior developers and the hiring pipeline of bringing junior folks in.  Again, the OP:<p>* senior folks get the chance to mentor, exercising a different skillset<p>* senior folks learn more about the problem domain by having to explain it<p>I&#x27;d add:<p>* junior folks bring in new ideas&#x2F;concepts<p>* some level of loyalty is inspired.  If nothing else, a beneficial brand among other new grads.<p>* the company matures and has to think about career path and retention<p>* good junior developers can be more &quot;bang for the buck&quot; as they grow.  they still need raises, but will be able to do more work per $ than a mid level person might (because of their familiarity with the tooling and the domain)