Sridhar Vembu Flags AI Paradox: More Productivity Now, No New Architects Later

In an era where AI is gaining more ground in every profession, Indian entrepreneur Sridhar Vembu flagged concerns surrounding junior roles.

In a post on X, the founder and former chief executive officer of Zoho Corporation said, "AI makes senior architects more productive and reduces the need for junior engineers. The architect needs to understand the requirements as well as the technology stack well, to be able to guide the AI and fine tune its output."

Vembu highlighted that in the industry if there are no junior engineers, it puts the training of the next generation of architects into jeopardy.

"After all how does someone become a software architect without being a junior engineer first? I am still thinking through how this gets resolved," the billionaire highlighted.

Vembu's post garnered a host of diverse replies, with everyone offering their two cents on the dilemma.

Some users pointed out that junior engineers will still be required, but in different capacities.

"The new type of junior engineers will be those who are good at communicating with models and are willing to deep dive to any extent when necessary. You don't need to know everything upfront, as long as you are ready with the new ways of working. Over a period, this skill itself will start seeing junior and seniors," replied one user.

"I think junior engineers will exist, but their job might shift from writing code to maybe debugging AI/validating outputs/understanding system behavior (sic)," added another.

Some X users outrightly disagreed with Vembu's statement and said that senior-level workers and executives face a more challenging situation.

"Disagree. We still need junior engineers, but their job has shifted to prompting & debugging LLM output. I’m more concerned about senior devs and exec-level operators. We’re increasingly replacing them with agents that make better decisions, faster (sic)," said another netizen.