Does generative AI level the playing field between a junior and an experienced developer? Or does experience matter more than ever? To get a real-world perspective, we sat down with two Nashville Software School (NSS) graduates now working together at Purity Health: Ripal Patel, an alum of Web Development Evening Cohort 8 and developer with five years of experience, and Drew Goodman, a 2024 graduate from Web Development Cohort 70. They share their perspectives on climbing the agentic AI learning curve, from their initial fears about AI to how it's already changing their daily workflows


02:08 - Meet Ripal: From Healthcare to Software Development
05:18 - Ripal's Initial Hesitation About AI
08:02 - Meet Drew: From Finance to a New Career in Tech
09:41 - Drew's Experience in a Slower Job Market
14:46 - Ripal's View: Did Experience Help in the AI Class?
18:10 - Drew's View: AI, Experience, and the Power to 'Screw Things Up'
19:37 - Aha Moment: 'It's Not Gonna Take My Job'
22:09 - How AI Changes the Developer Workflow: More Time Reviewing
23:41 - How AI Helps Junior Devs: More Time for System-Level Learning
26:09 - Key Mental Skill for AI: Breaking Down Big Tasks
30:33 - How is AI Different from Stack Overflow for Learning?
33:35 - Using AI to Learn a New Tech Stack on the Fly
36:04 - Workflow Breakdown: Agentic Mode vs. Ask Mode
40:29 - Using Guardrails and Instructions to Keep AI Consistent
44:53 - The NSS Mindset: 'Learning How to Learn'
46:41 - Advice for Experienced, Hesitant Developers
47:38 - Advice for Junior Developers Using AI
49:41 - Recommended Resources
52:07 - Tech Guilty Pleasures

LINKS:

Purity Health: https://www.purity-health.com/

Nashville Software School: https://nashvillesoftwareschool.com

Should Startups Hire Junior Developers in the Age of AI? | Stories From The Hackery with David Andrews and Fletcher Watson of Purity Health: https://learn.nashvillesoftwareschool.com/blog/2025/10/29/should-startups-hire-junior-developers-in-the-age-of-ai-stories-from-the-hackery


Agentic AI Tools
GitHub Copilot: https://github.com/features/copilot
Cursor: https://cursor.com
Anthropic's Claude: https://www.anthropic.com/claude

Community & Learning Resources
Nashville Data Nerds: https://www.meetup.com/data-nerds/
FreeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/
Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/
Stack Overflow: https://stackoverflow.com/