Analysis of the Czech IT job market
for graduates & juniors

For those who successfully finished requalification at IT coding & programming courses and IT academies

companies are now looking for candidates with experience, ideally from a similar job role and familiar with the tools they use – juniors, especially career shifters and retrained individuals are not in demand
the market is saturated with employees from ongoing lay-offs in tech companies, these people have a brutal advantage over the retrained ones = real work experience
a huge number of people are coming from various IT courses with the idea of immediate employment and wages above 60 000 CZK are waiting for a clash with reality – in Prague I dare to estimate the starting salary of a lucky junior around 35-40 000 CZK
employers now prefer experienced employees even for junior positions and are also starting to demand tech university education in NLP and ML or statistics and data analysis .. simply because they can
this implies a lack of interest in wasting time training juniors and a minimal supply of these positions.. and if they are still found, they require experience that a standard junior does not have

this trend will continue and grow stronger thanks to the GPT4o and other AI tools and assistants
programming language itself spiced with some SQL & HTML is insufficient nowadays = you need to learn more – how to use APIs, webscraping, testing, web frameworks (Flask, Django..), requests (GET, POST), working with files and JSONs, working with database, how front end and back end work together (a fullstack understanding is a must have) and demonstrate all this in a portfolio on GIThub and ideally demonstrate that you can deploy it somewhere on the web = an app

Programming is moving more towards being able to describe (AI) what I want to create and how it should work .. as we no longer use punch tags, low level languages are leaving the scene, the twilight of high level languages and programming as we know it now is also coming.. the principles of breaking down a problem into smaller parts and being able to build a good procedure (algorithm) are not changing and will still be needed
the programming language of the future may be English with the ability to describe what to do and how to solve the problem

for juniors, focus on further education in areas of interests rather than ASAP reaching out to companies
built projects, create a representative portfolio (e.g. apps with complete DB + front and back end)
as part of the process, actively use AI in learning and working
when learning, focus on understanding the concept and operation, specific functions and features can be handled by AI or IDE, I just need to know enough to know they exist and roughly how to use them
balance breadth and depth of knowledge well – too much depth and focus on one thing can be a hindrance (even redundancy) in the rate of obsolescence of a given tool, the principles do not change
as the market doesn’t offer real entry level or junior level jobs, let go of these “programming” jobs and take something easier for a start (which you may think is below your level) – become a web content creator, built websites & e-shops with Wordpress and Bootstrap, help with SEO optimization, IT support .. anything, just stay in TECH .. and in the meantime keep your coding skills alive and get better .. and after a time hit the market again armed with more skills and experience

Don’t give up! This world revolves around technology. Just like explorers in centuries past had to master navigation (whether they enjoyed every aspect of it or not), we need to understand and effectively navigate the landscape of technology and AI.
Keep an eye on the horizon – watch what’s going on (new programming languages, different coding paradigms, AI advancements, frameworks, new abstraction layers…). Practice solving problems with your code, hone your fundamental skills, and be ready to adapt your toolkit and learn new techniques when the environment demands it – like shifting from using a basic compass to advanced GPS as new tools become available.
Keep your core coding craft sharp, perhaps as a passion project or ongoing learning, even if your day-to-day role temporarily shifts. It’s your foundation for the future… and maybe a useful skill for when AI develops a sense of humour and decides to take a day off. :)

Stay curious and keep learning!