Consider for a moment the typical tasks assigned to entry-level designers: repetitive assignments, production work, implementing designs across various applications, creating presentations, applying a brand identity that wasn't made by you, designing a friend's wedding save-the-date card, and more. These are the tasks that expose you to various aspects of the profession - the "bring it on" and "say yes" modes, where no design task feels too small, and you have enough hunger to take on anything. It's during these first experiences that you meet a client, receive a design review, make design decisions, and hover your cursor nervously over the "Save" and "Export" buttons.
 

Personally, I believe that the first two years are the most important for a designer. They help you identify your strengths and the areas you need to improve, provide valuable perspective, shape your professional personality, and develop a thick skin - one of the most vital traits for any creator. Ideally, these first two years should be spent at an agency. There, the learning opportunities are optimal: diverse briefs, close art direction, and exposure to many aspects of the profession. I genuinely believe that once you enter tech, there is almost no turning back. If you go straight from design school into a tech company, you'll never become as strong a designer as you could have been had you spent time at an agency. And yes, I do come from a big SaaS company.
 

But I'm not naive. Over the past few years, I've hired dozens of designers straight out of school. For the organization, it's priceless - I'll explain that later. But for the designer, I think there is a downside, even at a company that supports juniors and recognizes their immense value.
 

When I ran my agency, I hired designers straight out of school. I refined the training and design process and found ways to retain them as long as possible. Yet, naturally, after two to four years, they left for tech. Many of them I later met at Wix. Early on, when my first employees started leaving for tech companies, I was angry and hurt. I was a young business owner, highly invested in people, and I saw them as true friends. But as the agency matured (and as I did too), I realized that's just how things work. Today, my perspective has done a 180°
 

A few years ago, I spoke with a colleague who runs a leading agency, and we joked about this exact issue. He told me that when his first designers left for Wix over 11 years ago, he bought shares of the company. Since then, he has done the same with every public company his employees have joined. Over the years, he has made quite a bit of money this way - a creative and profitable approach that still yields some benefits.
 

This lengthy introduction aims to highlight a troubling fact: AI is, to a large extent, rendering entry - level design jobs obsolete. Unneeded. This is already happening. Most of the tasks I mentioned in the first paragraph can now be done excellently by AI tools - and if they can't yet, they will by the time you finish reading this. Remember how, ten years ago, the ultimate nightmare was cutting out a model's hair in Photoshop? Damn, I remember how, whenever a curly-haired model showed up on shoot day, every designer in the room started sweating. We spent countless design hours on hair masking - usually assigned to junior designers. Today? Background removal is a one-click job.
 

This is a specific case affecting a particular seniority level, but due to the nature of that level (entry-level designers), it's a domino that could fall and significantly impact the entire profession. We can't afford for that domino to drop. If studios and companies no longer need very junior designers and instead prefer hiring mid-level professionals, we'll end up with a cohort of lost designers. Over the next two to three years, as the profession adapts and the industry adjusts, design school graduates may find themselves without entry-level design jobs. That alone is shocking. Designers might abandon the field, and who could blame them?
 

But the more concerning effect will come in a few years when the mid-level design group, as we know it today, no longer exists. Designers with three to six years of experience  -  who are essentially the driving force of the industry - will be missing.
 

What will agencies and companies do then? They might hire senior designers for mid-level roles, or juniors who haven't gone through proper training and development.

Am I being dramatic and overly pessimistic? Maybe. But I truly feel this shift coming. I believe it is the responsibility of design leaders and academia not to look away at this critical time. Instead, they must create mechanisms that ensure sustainable growth for the profession: more internship programs in companies, accelerated training tracks, new peripheral angles to the profession, concentrated design tasks at scale (such as model training), and more. This is not just an ethical responsibility but a professional one. Those who fail to manage this situation now will likely find themselves with an unbalanced and unhealthy design organization in the years to come.
 

The design community cannot remain indifferent. Indeed, towards the end of 2024, voices began emerging in various design circles, highlighting the responsibility design leaders must take in creating opportunities for juniors. As Vahan Hovhannisyan beautifully described in his article “The future of junior designer’s role"