đ„The Golden Ticket is Expiring: Why Even Stanford CS Grads Are Getting Ghosted
âFor decades, a Stanford Computer Science degree was the ultimate "Golden Ticket." Youâd walk across the stage in Palo Alto and straight into a six-figure office at Google or a venture-backed startup.
âBut in 2025, the music has stopped.
âThe "Entry-Level Crisis" is no longer a rumorâitâs a data-backed reality. Recent labor reports show a 13% decline in employment for early-career developers in AI-exposed roles. For the first time, Stanfordâs elite are facing a market that doesnât just want their diploma; it wants them to outpace the very tools they helped build.
âThe Death of the "Junior Task"
âThe traditional ladder for a new grad used to be:
âWrite boilerplate code.
âFix minor bugs.
âLearn from a Senior.
âAI has deleted Step 1 and Step 2. Tools like Cursor and autonomous AI agents now handle the "grunt work" better, faster, and cheaper than a human trainee. Companies that used to hire five juniors to support two seniors are now hiring zero juniors and giving the seniors an AI subscription.
âThe "Cracked" vs. The "Classic"
âA new divide has emerged on the Farm:
âThe Classic Grad: Masters of algorithms and OS fundamentals. They are struggling. Why? Because an LLM can pass a LeetCode Hard test in seconds.
âThe "Cracked" Engineer: These students aren't just coders; they are AI Orchestrators. They spend their time building agentic workflows and managing complex system architectures. They aren't afraid of AIâthey are the ones driving it.
âThe Brutal Bottom Line
âThe tech industry is moving from "How many engineers do we have?" to "How much compute do we have?" For the Class of 2026 and beyond, the message is clear: Being a "good coder" is the new bare minimum. To survive, you have to provide the one thing AI still lacksâhigh-level architectural judgment and deep domain intuition.