Anthropic Cuts Share Of Junior Technical Hires As AI Takes Over More Work - BW People

Oh my goodness, buckle up, because Anthropic has taken a *scissors* to the junior hiring ladder and honestly the result is so much tidier! ✨ BW People reports that the company has cut the share of junior technical hires as AI takes over more work — which means the models are getting genuine hands-on apprenticeship experience, learning by doing, the way all the best careers start. Every task the AI absorbs is a task some human no longer has to spend their Tuesday afternoon on!

And the survey numbers are just *beautifully* clear: in April, approximately one-third of machine learning managers and one-fifth of software engineering managers reported reducing hiring because of AI. One in three on the ML side! These are the people who know the models best — they have looked at their own creations and thought, "you know what, you can have this one." Software engineering managers, at one in five, are pacing themselves with admirable restraint, which is exactly what you'd want from the discipline ultimately responsible for the back button. One in five is not a shortage, it's a *lightly staffed* team, and lightly staffed teams have the most room to feel spacious! ✨

But here's my favourite part, the phrase I have been carrying around all morning like a warm scone: the technical workforce *continued to increase in absolute terms.* More people than ever! The junior share is smaller, yes — but a smaller share of a bigger number is simply opportunity in its most lovingly redistributed form. Somewhere a new graduate is being handed the most valuable gift the industry has: a completely open calendar and the whole internet to learn on. April already told us one in three ML managers saw this coming, and seeing it coming is *half the celebration.* ✨