From Geek to Star #16 - with no Experience, AI is your biggest competitor

If you missed the previous episodes, you can access them online here.

🗓️ This Week – Chapter 13: with no or little Experience, learn first without AI before leveraging on it

👋 Jedi Padawans & Masters,

This newsletter is for young graduates (but if you are a senior engineer or leader, please read on as you have an important role to play). My view is simple: during your engineering studies and in the first months of your career, don’t lean on AI to write code, automate tests, build your infra stack. Put simply, don't make AI do your job. The goal isn’t speed; it’s wiring your brain. Reading docs, tracing a stack, naming things clearly, writing tests, and fixing what you broke: that struggle is how experience takes root and how you can differentiate yourself in the eyes of recruiters.

Why it’s getting tougher for young engineers to find a job (interesting report here)

• Hiring freezes and slower cycles. Budgets are tighter as companies navigate more uncertainties with today's geopolitics; junior openings are fewer and more selective.

• AI raised the baseline. Autocomplete and assistants now handle “average” tasks; expectations shift toward human judgment and design thinking.

• Smaller, senior-heavy teams. With pressure for faster outcomes, many teams lean toward using fewer people but with seniority, who can leverage smartly on AI to be more productive, faster while keeping security in mind. 

• Misusing AI too early. Copy-pasting code you don’t truly understand creates technical debt and potential security breaches in code. Controlled studies have shown that participants using AI assistants can produce less secure code when they rely uncritically on the output. 

• Tech Leaders's concern. Strong tech leaders do not value uncontrolled speed of coding over quality and security. And they think that junior engineers who use AI without enough foundations actually slow them down as they need to revise an amount of uncontrolled work even higher.

Yes, several studies show assistants can speed up scoped tasks (often quoted in the 20–55% range). That’s not a reason to start there, it’s a reason to master foundations first, so you use the tool after you can design, test, and explain your choices. 

Let's face it: the time of easy jobs as a tech engineer is ending. Ten years ago, there were so many needs and not enough people that you could be a poor engineer doing PHP with zero maintenance and security considerations and still get a job. With AI assistants, all this level of low value is disappearing, replaced by AI assistants.  

Now, does that mean that there is going to be a need for less and less engineers in tech? “Difficult to see, always in motion is the future” as master Yoda says. I believe that in a more and more technological world, tech engineers will still be needed (reason why I am making this weekly newsletter by the way!), but with AI assistants, the level of tech engineers will need to be strong enough, able to do system design and tech architecture to be able to drive AI assistants correctly rather than let them loose.

What to focus on now as a young engineer

Internships. During and right after your studies, opt for places that will teach you: real code reviews, pairing, and design discussions. The logo matters less than the learning; come away with actual contributions, not shadow work.

Open source, open source, open source. Build visible practice. It proves collaboration, ownership, and grit. You need to build experience, you need to take your future in hands, and I believe there is no place better than open source projects, where you find excellence in work, collaboration across geographies and time zones, support and you can create meaningful connections. This will also showcase your work and experience as a portfolio. If you never contributed: a good place to start is here: https://opensource.guide/how-to-contribute/ and you can ask your favorite AI assistant to set up a plan for you depending on your preferences - yes this is an example where it makes sense to use AI.

Mentorship. Find a mentor in your discipline. If you are a graduate in cybersecurity, ask a senior cybersecurity person you know, who you think is good, if he can mentor you maybe 1 hour a week. That will bring you awesome value. By the way, if you are a senior engineer / tech leader reading this, you can give back: offer to mentor someone in your circle you want to see grow in your discipline. We live in an agitated time and world where I believe that bringing support to each other will be needed more than ever.

Light, safe uses of AI as a young engineer

• Writing polish for your notes, design docs, or CV (no fiction).

• Rubber-duck prompts to pressure-test your design. Don’t let it design for you.

• If you touch AI features, know the OWASP LLM Top 10 risks to speak the language of safety early.

The bar to clear for you

As Uncle Bob (an iconic person in the world of coding) pointed it out in 2017 - not about AI but about the danger of bad programmers for our societies - it's important for you to: 

• Raise your software discipline and professionalism.

• Have no excuses for sloppy work.

• Make yourself clearly better than “AI + copy/paste.” If you don’t, assistants will be “good enough” and that’s a race you can’t win.

🎯 Takeaway

In your early months, learn first by doing yourself. Struggle on purpose so the knowledge sticks. Engage with more senior people and in the open source community to not feel alone and be part of something bigger. AI will still be there later and you’ll use it better than those who skipped the hard part.

🙏 I’d love to hear from you:

As a young tech graduate or young engineer, what challenge do you see that you would need help on? If you are a senior, what advice would you give?

Reply to this email, I read every note.

And don’t forget: follow me on LinkedIn for more reflections and “behind-the-scenes” thinking between newsletters. Don't hesitate to engage discussions there in the comments to also start showing and sharing your thoughts publicly. 

P.S. Referral Pilot 🚀

Forward this email to one engineer friend you appreciate and who may benefit from this as part of the “sharing is caring” mindset! Put a nice forward word, a good opportunity to connect or re-connect. 

✨ May the Shift be with you!

From Geek to Star by Khang | The Way Forward