Advice for Junior Developers: Fundamentals Plus AI

Philipp Acsany
Community Videos Philipp Acsany 11:34

Coding fundamentals still matter, but on their own they won’t land you your first developer job anymore. After a call with a friend who finished a web development bootcamp and is now job hunting, Philipp shares what he’d tell any junior developer trying to break in right now.

You’ll hear why HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Git are still worth learning, and why using AI without understanding your code is a red flag for employers. You’ll also hear what “using AI” should actually mean: building faster, but also letting AI explain, review, and debug your code with you.

Philipp also makes the case that curious juniors may already know more about AI tools than some senior developers, and why that can be your edge in an interview.

Resources mentioned in this lesson:

How to Build the Python Skills That Get You Hired

Course

Building Python Skills for the Job Market

Learn which Python skills employers value most and how to build them, using a skill roadmap worksheet, weekly practice plan, and interview prep tips.

basics career

00:00 I just came from a call with a friend. I thought I’d share some thoughts I had after a conversation with her. She’s a junior developer and she’s currently looking for a job.

00:12 AI doesn’t make her life easier. As you might know, the job market, especially for junior developers, currently is crazy, almost non-existent. And there are reasons for that, but it sucks for everybody who’s looking for a job right now.

00:29 She worked in a completely different field and did a bootcamp last year. The bootcamp was basically web development. It was HTML, CSS, Git, JavaScript with Vue.js.

00:42 Quite decent and substantial, what she learned. And I’ve seen people with that stack getting jobs left and right a few years ago. But things changed due to AI and the economy.

00:56 So I think they are very tightly connected, which doesn’t make the situation better if you’re looking for a job. So she has luck if she even finds job advertisements that fit her stack.

01:09 It’s hard. Still, I think these skills are super valuable and I would basically still recommend if somebody wants to become, like in this case, a web developer, I would still recommend learning HTML, CSS and JavaScript and Git as the baseline of skills.

01:28 Because I think you learn so many fundamentals about programming with these that even in this new world of AI, it’s still super valuable. It gives you a good understanding of how things work under the hood without going too crazily under the hood.

01:50 But it won’t get you hired. You need to be really lucky to find a company that still looks for people with just that stack. And if I’m very honest, I would be also curious how a company works nowadays if they just look for people with that stack or junior developers with that stack, meaning HTML, CSS, JavaScript with a framework, because you don’t get around AI as a company.

02:29 So I think it’s even reasonable for a company to also look for junior developers with some skills in using AI. Now, that’s a very broad statement about what does using AI mean.

02:49 She’s exploring AI and is chatting with ChatGPT, trying out Claude Code and also overwhelmed about all the tools. She recently tried Cursor, the editor, and I was cheering her on so much with that because I think that this skill set of using AI is something that you nowadays need as a junior developer.

03:12 Learn AI to some degree, and you need to find a way how to navigate this world of AI where you still have fun coding and learn your fundamentals, but kind of use AI in your workflows that makes you employable.

03:31 Because honestly, unless some bubble bursts, I don’t see AI going away and employers not looking for people with AI skills. Or if anything, it will be always an advantage if you have these fundamentals.

03:48 So if you’re just doing AI and you have no idea about coding, I think that’s a problem. And as an employer, that’s even a red flag, I would say. But if you have this combination of I know fundamentals about web development, plus I’m using AI, I think you’re in a pretty good spot.

04:07 And once the economy gets a bit better, hopefully, then I think these will be the entry-level roles where people are getting their jobs. The question now is, what does using AI mean?

04:20 And honestly, I don’t really have a final answer for that, because the field is evolving so fast. And I think it also depends a little bit on

04:31 the field you’re working in, but also what you’re interested in. And I think that’s the other main point. Ideally, you find a way of staying curious with AI and staying interested with AI without being overwhelmed, using it for projects and gaining speed creating projects, but then also using it to learn about it and let it explain certain patterns to you and do some debugging sessions together.

05:06 So not just fast, fast, fast producing projects, but also taking a step back and using and embracing AI to have this little agent on the side that helps you understand how your code works, even though you might have not written the code yourself.

05:23 Being comfortable, giving a bit of the authorship to AI, but never getting into a state where you feel like you have no idea what’s happening, but then taking a moment where AI could review your code, but also explain the code to you that it wrote and kind of having this back and forth.

05:43 And I think this will give you a skill set of interacting with AI, being it just with chat, being it with Claude Code or Codex or Gemini CLI or whatever fits your workflows and really try things out, see what works for you, will make the perfect conversation starter if you’re then being in an interview to say how you are using AI.

06:06 Which brings me to my last point, and

06:10 that’s something I experienced talking to developers who have a job and are maybe more in senior roles. To be honest, some of you who are currently probably looking for a job or I mean, if you’re watching this video, you’re obviously interested in AI.

06:29 And I think that you’re even further than some of the developers that are having their stable jobs. And it’s not because they are kind of ignorant about AI, but often the day-to-day doesn’t really give you the time to look for AI.

06:48 And it’s only fair if you have a full-time job that in the evening, you don’t want to kind of explore new topics that much. And if you don’t really have something that you’re interested in with AI, it feels more like the scary thing that kind of scratches on the door of taking your job.

07:09 So there is more of a situation where people with more senior roles aren’t that experienced with AI. The other part could be, and that’s also reasonable, that companies don’t just want to get their AI clients into the company where you might not know where the data goes.

07:30 And of course, you want to have the data protected that you’re working in. So it’s not just kind of like, yeah, let’s all use and embrace AI and try things out because it’s a good idea as a company as well to be conservative in that degree.

07:46 So that means companies have often a very strict rule of which AI they use. Then there is the cost factor. So you can’t kind of give everyone everything, but sometimes you just have Copilot or you just have Gemini and you basically just program with this AI tool in whichever shape it is.

08:07 And I think this gives you also the advantage of being curious and trying things out and not being stuck to one AI tool. So in the end, I think the rise of AI is leveling the field of skills a bit more.

08:28 Because if you think back, so let’s say you learned in a boot camp HTML, CSS, JavaScript, maybe with a framework. So now you want to apply for a company that uses a different framework.

08:42 Before AI, it was a hard time getting so much into a new framework

08:49 that you are confident enough to apply for a job. Now with AI, I wouldn’t say it’s just a weekend project, but you have more tools around you to be confident of saying, OK, even though I don’t know the ins and outs of a framework, I know how to use AI in order to get to this level of understanding how frameworks work.

09:13 And if I myself don’t know how to do it, I know how to leverage AI to get a better understanding and be confident in the code I’m shipping. That is the one part.

09:24 And the other part is that if you’re curious about AI and you’re watching a video like this, you’re so ahead of the curve with looking at what’s around, what’s out there, and how other people are using AI that you are probably in a position that you could teach a senior developer how to use certain tools.

09:43 And I think that’s amazing. And I think that is something which a few years ago would have also been very hard because there wasn’t this new thing. And you have now the opportunity to be basically right before your next job and already having a little backpack of AI knowledge where the companies will be happy to have you on board because you bring this fresh air, not just as the you and the person and the human that comes into the company, but also with this curiosity and this knowledge about this new technology.

10:21 And I think that can make you a bit more optimistic. I want to make it also clear that in no way I’m saying like, hey, just learn AI and AI will solve everything for you and AI is the future and everything is perfect.

10:37 Because that’s not the case. It can be scary. I’m not going to lie. And it’s such a wild time that we’re living in with all the things that are happening. But yeah, as a junior developer, you need to find a way while still trying to keep your spirit up, having joy in programming and developing things and adjusting how to use AI.

11:01 And I think there is a chance there. I think there is a little pathway that you can find. And I guess the pathway will look completely different for any one of you.

11:13 But I’m super excited for you to find your path. And I guess that was everything I wanted to get off my chest. If you have any thoughts on that, feel free to drop the first comment below this video.

11:25 And I wish you all the best and a great start into the day. See you around.

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