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AI as Junior Developer

A useful mental model is:

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Copilot behaves like an infinitely fast junior developer.

A junior developer:

  • Writes code quickly
  • Knows many patterns
  • Has no understanding of your project

Without guidance:

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Prompt: Create a dashboard.

The result depends entirely on what Copilot has learned from public repositories.

With guidance:

Use Atomic Design.
Use React Context.
Use TypeScript.
No inline styles.
No Tailwind.
Generate Storybook stories.
Create tests.

The outcome becomes significantly more predictable.

Mini Exercise​

Review one AI-generated result as if it came from a junior developer.

Write down three specific review comments you would give back.

Example​

Your review might say:

  • move API calls out of the page component
  • rename the file to match the feature naming rules
  • add a test for the loading state