The current software engineering job market feels incredibly strange, and the statistics are confusing. While demand for software seems to be rising, many experienced developers are struggling to move roles, and junior engineers are facing what feels like a brick wall. If you are struggling to land a role or hire the right talent, you must realize that the old advice simply does not work anymore because the fundamental nature of how we build software is changing.
One of the primary issues is that most companies are terrible at hiring. For a long time, the industry relied on standardized technical interviews that involved solving algorithmic puzzles, often referred to as LeetCode style questions. The problem is that these interviews were designed to test your ability to memorize patterns rather than your ability to work on a team. Today, with the rise of artificial intelligence, an AI agent can solve these puzzles in seconds. If your interview process can be defeated by a chatbot while your actual day-to-day job cannot, then there is a massive disconnect in your hiring strategy. Companies need to shift toward “realist” interviews. This means creating an environment where a candidate is set up for success, similar to how a manager supports their team. This might involve working on a real bug in an open-source repository or discussing a project the candidate has actually built.
For experienced developers, also known as seniors, the challenge is different. You possess deep institutional knowledge and technical capability, but you might lack the raw energy and adaptability of a newcomer. There is a trap here where seniors become “jaded” or resistant to new tools. A helpful analogy is the shift from Blackberry and Nokia phones to the iPhone. In the mid-2000s, developers spent years mastering physical keyboards and specific operating systems. When the iPhone arrived with its touchscreen interface, all that specific experience became obsolete overnight. We are seeing a similar shift now with AI-assisted coding. If you are a senior developer refusing to adapt to tools like Cursor or GitHub Copilot because you prefer the “old way,” you are putting yourself at a disadvantage compared to a junior who is building faster than you using modern tools. Communication has become the most critical skill for seniors; you must be able to articulate why your engineering decisions are superior, otherwise, you cannot compete with the speed of AI generation.
For junior developers, the situation requires a completely new strategy because “cold applying” is effectively dead. Sending your resume into a portal where thousands of other applicants have submitted AI-generated CVs is a waste of time. You cannot rely on your university professors to teach you how to get hired, as many of them have been out of the industry for years. Instead, you need to focus on building trust. Trust is the currency of the modern job market. Since you do not have a work history to prove your value, you must prove it through “permissionless contribution.” This does not mean creating spam pull requests on GitHub. It means hanging out in the issue trackers of the libraries you use. If you encounter a bug, create a clean, minimal reproduction repository that helps the maintainers fix it. If you see a question in a Discord community that you know the answer to, help that person out.
This approach of being useful leads to networking that actually works. When you consistently provide value in technical communities, people remember your username. There are real examples of developers getting hired simply because a hiring manager recognized their handle from a helpful GitHub comment or a Discord thread. You need to transition from being a passive learner to an active contributor. Furthermore, you should use AI to accelerate your learning, not to cheat. Use these tools to build projects that are slightly beyond your current capability, a concept often called “vibe coding,” where you focus on the product and the problem-solving while the AI handles the syntax.
The most significant lever a junior developer has right now is excitement. The industry is scary, but it is also malleable. You do not have ten years of “bad habits” to unlearn. You can adopt the newest, most efficient workflows immediately. By collaborating with others, turning your curiosity into tangible projects, and being genuinely helpful in public spaces, you bypass the resume pile entirely. The goal is to make it easy for someone to vouch for you because they have already seen your work and know you are pleasant to work with.
To succeed in this new environment, you must stop waiting for permission and start demonstrating value. For hiring managers, this means looking for candidates who demonstrate curiosity and communication skills over rote memorization. For developers, it means embracing the chaos of the current market by being the most helpful, energetic, and adaptable person in the room. If you can balance your technical growth with genuine community involvement, you will find opportunities that no job board could ever provide.