I'm a senior software engineer. I see how hard it is for junior engineers but AI is only partly to blame.

"When I started my career, you could go to a three to six-month boot camp and get a job. That's kind of what I did. After high school, I attended a boot camp and then started a web-design firm with a friend. Then I studied computer science at Harvard and founded a startup with an MBA friend while I was there."

"I was very green at the time, and wanted to see what the industry was like. So I got a job in the field and eventually worked at Amazon for three years. Now I'm back at a Series B startup. At the beginning of my career, I received a lot of mentorship, and I felt like I was invested in. That helped me become technically better, but also helped me become a better and more empathetic mentor myself."

Andrew Wang, 33, launched a company out of Harvard and now works as a senior engineer at a Series B e-commerce AI startup after three years at Amazon. Early career entry via a three- to six-month boot camp led to founding a web-design firm and later studying computer science at Harvard. Early mentorship accelerated technical growth and shaped a desire to mentor others. Junior engineers face a tough job market marked by oversaturation, AI-driven changes, and economic uncertainty, with many sending hundreds or thousands of applications without responses. A hiring slowdown could produce a long-term shortage of senior software engineers.

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