The Postings Are Asking for Seniors

A recent analysis of Indeed’s data has been going around. Software development job postings have been recovering this past year - but when you look at where the growth came from, most of it, by their count around 70%, was in senior roles. A large share of the rest came from roles with “AI” in the title. Entry-level postings, meanwhile, have stayed weak. Updated versions of the Stanford study on early-career workers tell a consistent story: the youngest developers are still finding it hardest to get in.

Two years ago I wrote about the K-shaped developer market. At the time it was an argument. Now it’s simply what the data shows.

I want to say something about it that isn’t “I told you so,” because I don’t think that’s the interesting part.

Why the market wants seniors

The reasons aren’t mysterious. When machines can write much of the code, the scarce things are judgment, ownership, and the ability to tell good work from plausible work. Those come from years of building, breaking and maintaining real systems. Companies have figured this out. One experienced person with good tools now does what used to require a team, and the price of that person has gone up accordingly.

If you’re a senior developer, this is a good time. Many of you are busier, better paid, and more in demand than you’ve ever been. I’m genuinely glad. Many of you earned it over decades of patient, unglamorous work.

What it asks of us

But I’ve been sitting with a question: what does it mean to be on the side of the K that’s rising?

I think it means two things.

First, it means humility about luck. Most of us became senior in a world that hired juniors freely, trained them on the job, and let them make mistakes on real systems. We didn’t earn the circumstances we grew up in. Those circumstances are gone for the people behind us. That’s worth remembering when we’re tempted to think our position is simply what we deserve.

Second, it means responsibility for the pipeline. The market isn’t going to train the next generation of seniors on its own; the incentives point the other way. If it happens, it’ll happen because individual experienced people chose to make room - to mentor, to advocate for an early-career hire, to review someone’s code patiently when it would have been faster to fix it themselves. I wrote about this last year, and I still think it’s the most important thing seniors can do with their good fortune.

What seniority actually is

I’d also gently suggest that the market’s definition of “senior” is incomplete. It tends to mean years of experience and a list of technologies. Those matter. But the seniors I most admire have something else: they make the people around them better. They explain instead of correcting. They stay calm when things break. They take responsibility for outcomes, not just for their own tasks. They know what they don’t know.

If the market is going to pay a premium for seniority, I hope we live up to the full meaning of the word.

For those not yet there

If you’re early in your career and reading this, I know the data is discouraging. I won’t pretend otherwise. But I’ll tell you what I’ve seen work: build real things, learn fundamentals deeply, use the tools without letting them think for you, and find people further along who are willing to help. Most of us remember being where you are. More of us want to help than you’d guess. Ask.

Seniority is not just what you know. It’s what you pass on.