I'm not sure that you're going to fix that with juniors...

well, somebody has to learn it anew, after all the seniors are out. It's fine.

What if they're cheap, though? Perhaps the pay scale for programmers starts to resemble that for finance bros: very low pay for the first few years because so many go into the field, and those who accumulate skill (and connections, etc) can then hit the hockey stick part of the graph and get a huge pay boost when they become middle and senior. So, it would be a deskilling of programmers at the start of their careers but still worthwhile to hire them if they are cheap and can dig through the tech debt with sheer numbers/manpower. I'm just spitballing here.

I've already seen an instance of a junior developer being completely unable to fix vibe coded technical debt, even with guidance, because AI analysis is fundamental to how they understand code and they're unable to comprehend what's happening when the AI analysis is not right.

Yes, not using AI will be a big competitive advantage for junior programmers.

i see this every day in the field with new juniors... they cant fix anything that would be a 1 line change if they could actually read the code but instead spend hours churning the ai to get the answer... if thats all they could do i'd never hire someone like that personally but companies with lots of margins seem to be able to absorb this for now... idk

It is senior programmers that will be in demand again, but at junior price.

Why do you think this will happen?

I have a different opinion. I agree senior programmers will be in demand again, but not at junior price. Possibly even at a premium senior price. Why would we fix the vibe coded systems for less pay?

My thinking is most seniors could stop working and continue living just fine. Sure, we’d have to cut down travel vacation and other luxuries, but most if not all of us own our homes and have enough passive income to not have to worry about basic bills and food, so I don’t see us working for less.