Who will train tomorrow’s designers?
Who will train tomorrow’s designers?
On mentorship, AI, and the uncertain future of entry-level design roles
Last week, Founder and Eternal CEO
posed a question that’s been haunting the edges of our industry discourse:“Who will choose to take on the burden of training new talent? The least experienced person is the most replaceable—who will develop them? Who will give that experience?
It’s a “third rail” topic, as Michael J. Miraflor puts it—one I’ve been hesitant to touch. But coming on the heels of our discussion about generalists inheriting the future, I see it differently now. The crisis facing junior designers isn’t just about AI replacing entry-level work. It’s about the slow erosion of how we grow and nurture talent in our industry.
The quiet decline
Even before AI entered the chat, junior design positions were vanishing. A perfect storm of factors has been brewing with industry-wide hiring freezes, an abundance of bootcamp graduates flooding the market, and remote work both expanding the talent pool and making more hands-on mentorship logistically challenging. Anecdotally, I’m also hearing stories of companies prioritizing execution over growth, signaled by designers pushed towards independent contributor roles instead of management.
The result? Fewer opportunities for newcomers to get their foot in the door. When positions do open up, they’re inundated with applicants within minutes. Those lucky enough to land roles often find themselves in environments that aren’t set up to support their growth.
The AI accelerations
Now enter AI, seemingly ready to handle the very tasks traditionally given to junior designers—the production work, the repetitive but skill-building activities that have long been entry-level territory. While current AI tools are far from replacing any junior designer I’ve worked with, they’re changing the calculus for hiring managers who view junior roles as primarily about execution.
The World Economic Forum predicts AI will create 2.6 million new jobs by 2027. But these aren’t the traditional junior positions we’re familiar with. Instead, they’re evolving into hybrid roles like “AI explainers” —described as “user experience designers” for LLMs:
“People old enough to remember the first PCs may recall having to type in a series of precise technical commands into MS-DOS to get their computer to start up. In a similar way, many of today’s LMMs are still highly technical, meaning they will need well-designed interfaces to make them accessible by the general public, the Forum says.”
Others are morphing into hybrid roles that demand both design skills and AI fluency. The industry is shifting towards generalists—individuals who can do a bit of everything, including wrangling AI tools.
The hidden cost
This isn’t just about missed opportunities for individual designers. We’re witnessing the potential collapse of knowledge transfer in our industry, akin to nuking a beloved archive of your industry’s stories. Without junior roles, where does institutional knowledge live? How does craft get passed down? As Sean M. Dineen notes, “WFH has already decimated the knowledge-sharing culture in lots of firms. AI just extends and expands the weirdness.”
The irony? Junior designers bring exactly what we need in the age of AI: fresh perspectives, unconventional thinking, and the ability to question established norms. They don’t know what the rules are, so they break them. They don’t know where the ceiling is, so they crash through it. They are not bound by the paradigms that shaped the previous generations point of view. They are native, they are fluent, and they are hungry. And they will eat, whether we invite them to the table or not.
Without intentional steps towards up-leveling this group of designers and jump-starting their careers, I predict in a few years’ time we’ll hear familiar laments of “pipeline problems” that have doggedly nipped at the heels of hiring managers for the last decade. We’ll see larger, legacy teams slow down, homogenize, and innovation decrease as those with new ideas take them elsewhere. Teams will age out, move on, burn out with no one to fill their shoes.
The path forward
Speaking with educators on the front lines of this shift has given me hope. Kelin Carolyn Zhang at RISD is teaching students to build with LLMs, producing designers ready for mid-level roles or entrepreneurship right out of the gate. The kids, as they say, are more than alright.
The bar for entry is rising, and the skills that matter are evolving. The future will undoubtedly look different. As is always true: What got us here won’t get us there. What’s becoming clear is that what makes junior designers valuable hasn’t changed—it’s their unique point of view. The skill we need to cultivate isn’t just technical proficiency but the ability to see differently, to question effectively, to bring fresh perspectives to old problems.
A call to action
As traditional pathways shift, it’s on us—the current generation of designers—to create new ones. We have a responsibility to open doors that are shut, to pass down ladders that have been yoinked up. It’s on each of us to create those opportunities where there are none by forging new forms of mentorship. This might look like:
Establishing mentorship structures that work in hybrid and remote environments
Creating dedicated early-career programs focused on strategic thinking alongside technical skills
Recognizing and valuing the unique perspectives that newcomers bring
Making time for digital coffees, portfolio reviews, and answering those cold emails
The future of junior designers isn’t about replacement but transformation. While AI will change how they work, it won’t eliminate the need for human creativity, empathy, and strategic thinking. The question isn’t whether there’s a place for junior designers in our AI-augmented future—it’s how we’ll evolve our industry to ensure they can thrive.
—Carly
Have you seen interesting form of mentorship? New models for knowledge sharing? Share in the comments!
ugh, this is so good. I've literally been thinking about this for months now but couldn't articulate it