I feel like hiring juniors still exists, because I still hear about loads of "boring" small startups that do the "we hire juniors and seniors".
Juniors cuz they're cheap and motivated (and potentially grow into very good team members!), seniors to handle the trickier stuff. Mid-level people don't get picked up cuz there's enough junior pipeline that the cost-benefit doesn't work out.
Thing is these companies tend to have, say, college pipelines and the like for juniors. Internships and the like. It would be really painful to not have internships lined up at "your local startup" in this day and age.
My impression is that a lot of the junior dev pipeline is in smaller places that don't show up in job boards in the same way as the rest of it. Maybe that's dried up too, but I have my doubts.
You still need somebody to work the robot, even if the robot is "doing the coding"!
Juniors cuz they're cheap and motivated (and potentially grow into very good team members!), seniors to handle the trickier stuff. Mid-level people don't get picked up cuz there's enough junior pipeline that the cost-benefit doesn't work out.
Thing is these companies tend to have, say, college pipelines and the like for juniors. Internships and the like. It would be really painful to not have internships lined up at "your local startup" in this day and age.
My impression is that a lot of the junior dev pipeline is in smaller places that don't show up in job boards in the same way as the rest of it. Maybe that's dried up too, but I have my doubts.
You still need somebody to work the robot, even if the robot is "doing the coding"!