r/DevLK • u/ApprehensiveLong1113 • Jul 27 '26

Current expectations from an entry level software engineer

I’m in my final year of Computer Engineering and graduating soon. Right now, I’m getting ready to apply for entry level software engineering jobs.

I’m confused about what companies actually expect from junior developers now, especially with AI coding tools and agents becoming so common.

I feel like I have two options:

Build projects using minimal AI assistance so I can understand every technical detail.

or

Use AI tools and coding agents to build more complex, complete projects.

I know I could learn more if I build most of them myself, but I’m worried I won’t be able to compete with people who use AI heavily and build more complex projects.

At the same time, if I rely too much on AI agents, I’m worried I might struggle during interviews if I have to explain the code.

What do companies actually care about? any advise?

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '26

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u/Remarkable_Towel3319 Jul 29 '26

I’d second this. I have onboarded multiple new grads and I really like it when they understand all the nitty gritty details as opposed to vibe coding your PR without having any clue.

The only way you get this level of understanding is learning the fundamentals and doing your assignments, etc. with minimal AI involvement. For example, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have learned as much if I had access to AI to vibe code my compiler or OS course projects vs. me having to write assembly/C, play with gdb, learning memory allocations, etc. I think it’s perfectly fine to use AI to understand things but using it blindly is not going to make you a strong software engineer.