Debugging Is a Lost Art. Juniors Never Had It. Seniors Traded It. AI Faked It. Cool Story.

How AI quietly broke two things on our .NET team at the same time. In opposite directions. Nobody noticed until production noticed for us. TL;DR Juniors ship fast and cannot debug anything. Seniors can debug but increasingly choose not to. The AI writes immaculate code with the error handling of a sleep-deprived intern. And everyone is too busy to care until 2am. 2013 vs 2026 In 2013, joining a .NET team meant getting stuck on a NullReferenceException for forty minutes, Googling the same thing four times, and finally understanding it in a way you never forgot. In 2026, it means asking the AI and moving on in ten seconds. Both are valid. Only one builds scar tissue. The Juniors: They Never Had to Struggle AI removed the productive suffering. Ask a junior to trace a value through .NET middleware they did not write. Ask them to explain an async deadlock. Ask them to open the actual debugger. You can see the exact moment the confidence leaves their face. "I have trained you well. Now debug