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Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

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Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#41

Post by tcbawo »

aphextron wrote: post #36
dharmab wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't quit your job without your next source of income secured.

>Don't quit your job without your next source of income secured. I guess this is the takeaway from a self preservation standpoint, but the alternative is worse. Spending months of your employer's time completely mentally checked out, taking sick time and vacation for interviews, pretending like you care in meetings, it's all too much. I watched that happen multiple times before I left, and it's really discourteous to…

When you quit, you lose leverage. It's not unethical to use personal and vacation days as you see fit.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#43

Post by gcmac »

aphextron wrote: post #36
dharmab wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't quit your job without your next source of income secured.

>Don't quit your job without your next source of income secured. I guess this is the takeaway from a self preservation standpoint, but the alternative is worse. Spending months of your employer's time completely mentally checked out, taking sick time and vacation for interviews, pretending like you care in meetings, it's all too much. I watched that happen multiple times before I left, and it's really discourteous to…

Having been through this recently I certainly empathize with feeling like you're doing something wrong when looking for a new job. What got me through it was realizing that if the company was looking to replace me they would do the exact same thing - it's just how business works.

That being said, as difficult as it is to continue to give 100% leaving well is very important for building references that could help you in the future.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#44

Post by rurounijones »

daze42 wrote: post #40
monocasa wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. FAANG hires more devs than they need just to keep the rest of FAANG from getting them.

Facebook Amazon Apple N? Google?

Netflix

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/faang-stocks.asp

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#45

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Misdicorl wrote: post #5

I think it's totally doable, but you need two important things 1) a good exit process 2) a good promotion process 1 brings serious culture issues/questions with it. See horror stories from people who went to grad school in the 80s and 90s where year two cut rates were 50% or worse. I don't know how you deal with this, but it will certainly deeply affect your work environment. 2 is easy on the face, but requires huge…

> Realistically you're looking at a 2-10x increase in this person's compensation over a very short time frame or you'll lose your training investment as they jump ship.

This is actually a very helpful risk-mitigation strategy. If you hire someone with less experience at a lower salary expecting to train them and it turns out they're terrible, all you have to do is not promote them. Once they realize they won't be promoted here but on paper have some experience that can get them a higher paying job elsewhere, they'll promptly disappear on their own without you having to fire them and all that goes with that.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#47

Post by realbarack »

aphextron wrote: post #36
dharmab wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't quit your job without your next source of income secured.

>Don't quit your job without your next source of income secured. I guess this is the takeaway from a self preservation standpoint, but the alternative is worse. Spending months of your employer's time completely mentally checked out, taking sick time and vacation for interviews, pretending like you care in meetings, it's all too much. I watched that happen multiple times before I left, and it's really discourteous to…

It is absolutely not unethical to remain somewhere once you've decided to leave. The agreement between you and your employer is that you provide your work in exchange for their money. If you're employed at-will then the company is free to fire you any time they think they're not getting their end of the deal.

Of course, it is more fun to work at a job you care about. But you are under no obligation to "care," and there's nothing wrong with keeping a job while you don't care until you find another one.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#48

Post by procinct »

daze42 wrote: post #40
monocasa wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. FAANG hires more devs than they need just to keep the rest of FAANG from getting them.

Facebook Amazon Apple N? Google?

Netflix. Common abbreviation for big tech companies in Finance.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#49

Post by perryh2 »

aphextron wrote: post #28

>I ask this because I'm 4-years-experienced as a front-end UI/interaction dev, nothing but glowing references, looking for another, similar, position (regular, not senior or lead) and have had...way too many interviews and rejections, and can't understand why companies are such sticklers for interested devs to have Every Single Box in their list of requirements checked when it would take days or a couple weeks to lea…

To OP and aphextron: Keep your head up and treat unemployment like a full-time job. How many is "way too many" interviews? If you haven't been able to pass phone screens, you must identify the reason why. Interviewers and recruiters are looking for engaged candidates, so make sure you do research about the company and come up with some good questions to demonstrate interest. This is the main problem that I've seen with my friends that have "failed" phone interviews. If you need any help with soft skills, ping me on Twitter (info in profile).

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#50

Post by thrower123 »

Basically everyone at the small company I work at has come up through the ranks. I've been there the longest at this point, and I started as a true greenhorn, with no experience, and I've learned on the fly for almost eight years now. I like to think I kind of know what I'm doing some of the time now ;-)

Our other employees that have stuck around and become productive have all been initially hired as part-time testers and interns. Some of them were students at the time, others were coming in from other trades entirely. But they all trained up incrementally on our products and learned our business over time. Granted, theres definitely been a filtering, as maybe a quarter of all those we put in those testing roles proved capable of moving on to doing development work, but that is much better than the success rate we have had trying to hire for actual development positions, whether junior or senior.

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