I have a vested interest in college kids’ outcomes right now because I have two of them myself and one on the way, and things seem very uncertain for them. When I read the research data about what’s happening, I pay extra close attention.

It’s not very encouraging. According to very recent research from Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab, published in August of this year, companies that adopt AI at higher rates are hiring juniors 13% less. Another study from Harvard published in October of this year cites that early-career folks from 22-25 years old, in these same fields, are experiencing greater unemployment while senior hiring remains stable or even growing.

There are so many young people out there that don’t have the luxury of living with their parents during hard times, and this, sadly, has the potential to affect their entire career trajectory.

Why I Got Involved

Because of the work I do with People Work, I was lucky enough to be able to dig into this issue more deeply when we joined CU Boulder Venture Partner’s Starting Blocks program to see whether or not universities were feeling this, too. The point of the program was to validate a customer segment for our business (students), but as a mom and an engineer, I had a deeper purpose. I did interviews with university faculty and staff and students from all over the country, and I found anecdotally, of course, that the research findings have definitely caught up to what people are feeling.

What I’m Hearing From Universities

Most of the university post-graduation job placement statistics have not caught up with the research yet, but staff and students alike have anecdotally told me that they feel it. Students are telling advisors that they are struggling with getting that first job, and hopelessness looms.

I recently responded to a video from a CS grad who described feeling 'cooked', and I get it. The feelings are valid.

The most surprising thing that I learned is that everyone - career services staff, professors, deans, students, and parents alike - all agree that networking is absolutely essential for post-graduation job-placement success. (This was before they knew who I was or what People Work was about.) They see the AI-resume / AI-recruiting game and know that the only way to stand out is creating genuine connections with other professionals.

That said, they all struggle with how to do it and/or how to scale it to all of the students. Many noted platform fatigue with all of the networking apps out there designed to connect the students to alumni or mentors. Even very well-resourced students, with access to mentorship groups, alumni associations, professional groups, etc, struggle to know how to build relationships and make the most of the breadth of their access to people.

The most common answer from career services professionals when asked what they needed was more staff. The most common answer from students when asked what they needed was a mentor who had just been in their shoes a few years ago, a surprising and heartening answer.

They all want intentional, meaningful, and authentic professional relationships for the students, but there seems to be a pervasive lack of relational intelligence that blocks them from receiving it. This is totally normal and expected, as they’re young and they grew up with social media. But it’s particularly problematic for those going into AI-adopting industries, and here’s why.

The “I’m an IC, not a manager” Culture

When tech companies started giving engineers an alternative career path to management by letting them climb the ranks as individual contributors instead of having to be managers, I thought that was definitely the right move. Still do. However, the unintended consequence of that is that we’ve spent a decade normalizing senior engineers opting out of developing the next generation.

When I was breaking into tech in my thirties, I quickly ran into this headlong and found that I had to demand mentorship. People right out of college don’t have years of experience to know that they should, also. “I’m an IC not a manager,” became an acceptable argument to avoid this work, and it became the norm across the tech industry.

AI Is Replacing the Training Ground, Not Replacing Expertise

We used to have a training ground for junior engineers, but now AI is increasingly automating away that work. Both studies I referenced above cited the same thing - AI is getting good at automating junior work while only augmenting senior work. So the evidence doesn’t show that AI is going to replace everyone; it’s just removing the apprenticeship ladder.

When we neglect teaching hands-on work, we forfeit building expertise.

When we avoid pair-programming, we miss out on transmitting tacit knowledge.

When we don’t teach the art of a code review, we miss the opportunity to teach software architectural design.

When AI replaces junior engineering work and seniors have been excused from people development responsibilities, you get a missing generation.

Future Implications: The Timing Mismatch

So what happens in 10-20 years when the current senior engineers retire? Where do the next batch of seniors come from? The ones who can architect complex systems and make good judgment calls when faced with uncertain situations? Those are skills that are developed through years of work that starts simple and grows in complexity, through human mentorship.

We’re setting ourselves up for a timing mismatch, at best. We’re eliminating junior jobs in hopes that AI will get good enough in the next 10-20 years to handle even complex, human judgment calls. And if we’re wrong about that, then we have far fewer people in the pipeline of senior engineers to solve those problems.

The Incentive Structure Problem

What makes this a particularly difficult problem to solve is that the economic incentives are completely misaligned.

The social contract between large companies and employees has been broken for years now. US companies are optimized for quarterly earnings, not long term investment in their employees. That’s not to say that there aren’t people within those companies who care about employee development, but the system isn’t set up for that to be the companies’ top priority. They need the flexibility to have layoffs without remorse, and they trade that for the average employee tenure being about 2 years. When that’s the case, then there is really no incentive to invest in juniors, so they just hire seniors. And this is magical thinking which has kind of worked for the last decade, but I predict it is no longer sustainable.

Let’s add it all together:

What You Can Control: Pivot to Individual Agency

Given this broken system that we find ourselves in (those of us in AI-adopting industries), let’s focus not on what we are powerless over but rather what we can change.

I am hopeful…even bullish if you will…that if enough people take ownership of their careers and development, companies will have to respond.

How To Do This: Build the Skills That AI Can’t Automate

Get good at the things that AI can’t do - the ability to influence, collaborate, and navigate complex human systems. When AI can write your code, human skills are the differentiator.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

Identify the 10-30 people in your professional network that matter most to your career. These folks will fall into four different categories:

1. Guide - Those who look to you for guidance.
2. Align - Those who you seek to align with, who have a vested interest in the outcome of your work.
3. Partner - The peers with whom you work most closely and collaborate.
4. Network - Your broader community with whom you create a cultural context with your shared values.

Get intentional about nurturing each of those relationships. You’re not just “growing your network”, you’re seeking to understand how your unique skills can help with their unique needs. This will look different with each person, so get curious.

Track what’s working and what’s not. Note what is happening and how you feel about it. Get introspective. Keep track of the commitments made between the two of you. Are you being helpful or transactional?

Practice while the stakes are low. If you’re a student, practice building these relationship skills now, in the safety of school where mistakes are welcomed. Then you will be able to add value immediately and be better positioned for finding the all-important internship and first job.

Why This Matters More Than Ever

Senior engineering roles have always been leadership positions, but we haven’t been great as an industry at enforcing it. Imagine a tech industry where relationship skills weren’t just nice-to-have but essential. Where navigating complex human systems was seen as a core competency.

When students start practicing building this relational intelligence now, then they are creating the muscle memory that will be so helpful when they graduate. Then when they get their first job from someone in that well-nurtured network, they can use that newly built relational intelligence to understand how to best onboard to their new role and start adding value quickly.

This requires intentional practice, pattern recognition, and psychological safety. It will be difficult but necessary.

I will not sugar coat it. Yes, the traditional apprenticeship model in tech has been slowly eroding and AI is accelerating that. Yes, companies’ incentive models are not in favor of the employee. And yes, the 10-20 year talent pipeline is at risk.

But I didn’t write this post to simply complain about a broken system. I wrote this post because I’ve been navigating this system as an career changer in tech for a decade now and have learned a thing or two about how to do that successfully.

If you’re a student or early-career professional, start building that relational intelligence now. Identify about 10-20 key relationships and get intentional with them. Track what works and what doesn’t. We can help, if you need it!

If you’re a senior engineer or manager, teaching forces clarity. When you have to explain things in their most basic form, you understand it more deeply, and this, in turn, benefits the entire team.

If you’re a university administrator, I recommend embedding relational intelligence into your core curriculum, especially in the majors in AI-adopting industries. If you need ideas of how to do that, we’re happy to help.

Relationship skills have always been a differentiator, but now they’re a necessity. It taps into what makes us more human, and I for one think that adding more humanity to technology and business is pretty wonderful.

We’re here to help! Email me if you want to chat about making this more approachable for students, universities, engineering teams, or yourself.