- My original notepad text, as I typed it and made minor corrections myself
- The AI corrected spelling and grammar version of this post is below
- The AI analyzed version is here
- The screenshot of the AI conversation I had. And I don’t use just that AI – I use many. I just chose that one as I knew I could grab a screenshot.
- Anthropic. (2026). Claude Sonnet 5 [Large language model]. https://claude.ai
- Requested spelling and grammar check.
AI is the best junior engineer I’ve ever had.
I’ve been in my profession, IT, for 30+ years now. And everyone is all aflutter about AI replacing their jobs. This is true. It does. AI has replaced many of the tasks I used to do by hand.
But here:
My dad joined the navy and became an avionics electrician. He parlayed that to a job at the phone company, from which he retired 30 years later. He started with physical electric switching equipment. He fixed actual physical phone switches and their electrical signal requirements – like, actual tiny pieces of metal that made contact with each other that made phone calls work. He retired having that knowledge, and still having to fix some of the old physical switches – but through training in the last half of his career he mostly issued commands into computers – that did all that switching digitally, out of physical view and domain. And I remember that training – that context switch in the phone world. He went to a lot of training and I remember me and my mom sleeping in the same room when he was gone for weeks at a time because it made us both feel better. But he survived and did it and understood. And telecommunications still basically operate the same. You dial some number or ID – and talk to the person. Obviously video is now in the picture and HOW you do it is different. But there are still some old aspects – you gotta know some number or ID, “dial” it – and they answer – or not. Same function. Different modes and tools.
Now is no different.
My 30 years of IT experience – LOAD "*",8,1 – hand coding HTML in notepad, configuring NT 3.1, discovering linux, making it work. Coax. web 1.0 2.0 x.x, social media – and now AI. – oh and IPX/SPX and NetBEUI, anyone LOL? Well, that’s all a memory now but also that incredibly enabling technology was made possible by good folks predating me who made THAT all work. Such is progress.
So AI is the best junior engineer I’ve ever had. Although I’ve had my own fits with it – ask me how I spent $250 in one hour because I didn’t know what I was doing (an article for another day). But I learned. AI is SO enabling for me now. It’s a force multiplier. Everything I’ve ever wanted to do – server-wise, code-wise, IDEA-wise – whatever – I now have an instant, knowledgeable engineer at my fingertips. So far, they’re excellent – but I need to guide them as their mentor. Otherwise they go off the rails quickly. Junior Engineer. But the raw talent is there. And it needs to be fostered and guided.
So, where does that land the human junior engineer of the now – what about them?! I ache about this. I worry they won’t learn the foundations of what I know – because AI will just do it for them.
And that’s the point.
I understand a lot of IT – even down past network layer into physical layer of how IT operates. But then I stop. Somebody before me figured out how to make Ethernet happen (and I know who it was – but you know what I mean). I’m not re-inventing that wheel – I’ve always EXPANDED on it. And thrived.
Human knowledge evolves, and although I will give caution to that statement (I mean, we’ve all seen the terminator movies) my mind comes to a peace of sorts. This will be THEIR world. Human junior engineers of today will do things that I couldn’t even begin to comprehend. I mean I have an inkling – DNA medicine. Materials research. Pure mathematics (gaddam – give us Star Trek warp LOL!). That will be their world. And it will be as natural as it was for me to learn from the fine folks that laid my foundation.
Today’s junior engineer will be my guide for tomorrow, and I give this great deference in my brain.
As long as we keep knowledge flowing forward, and knowledge free – we’ll be ok (education costs and availability – an article for another day!)
This is inordinately optimistic for me – but it’s been so omnipresent in my brain as I fight the truth (and a touch of depression) – I’m old. Not old-old, but good enough. I’m not out of it. I got fight. I got moxie. I got knowledge. But I don’t think it’s out of my wheelhouse to concentrate on what I know, adapt and guide myself to other milestones in life and being pleased that I was a part of the entire process. I added. I did not subtract.