Who Killed the Junior Developer?

This has been going on for years. Back in the mid 80's when I was going to college I knew a lot of people had come back to get their masters are even change fields because they couldn't find jobs. Employers wanted 2-3 years minimum experience and the new grads lamented how were they supposed to get said experience? My first job I worked FREE for the first 3 months at a startup (they didn't have the money to make a payroll anyway). Ultimately that launched my career and got me past the 2-3 years experience issue. This was back in the 80's!

What trouble are candidates looking for junior developer positions running into? Lack of openings? Lack of response from companies? Can't get past the interview?

(Also, are these people advertising themselves as a "junior developer"? Perhaps this is just my experience, but I don't think I ever used that; I started my search looking for simply "software engineer" positions.)

(One the one hand, one company I worked for doesn't seem to really have any junior developers, but we're also not hiring period AFAIK. Another company I worked for pretty much only hired interns, b/c hiring was otherwise tight and those were easy to get approval for. Not quite what I think the article means by "junior dev" (I interpret that to mean "entry level software engineer") They were generally very helpful, though I think we learned how much we needed to learn about being mentors.)

> Also their hand wringing about the costs seems like crocodile tears knowing all the time they waste (at least in my opinion) on things like meetings.

I echo this opinion.

I love mentoring. I always have. I used to help out other kids in my high school programming classes. Despite holding several high-level software development positions, what is the total number of times I've been asked by management to mentor more junior folks?

Zero.

I did it because I love sharing knowledge and I like seeing looks of understanding appear on my colleagues' faces when they "get something" for the first time.

The short-termism that's infested our culture--it seems like all Western culture--is truly sickening. It feels like "Well, I got mine, screw the next generation." This goes way beyond just junior developers.

Its a large mix of problems. There is infinitely more demand for the top ~20% of developers then the bottom ~80%. There is a glut of new undergrads and transitioning professionals. There is a larger-then-other-industries capital expenditure in hiring, training, and managing, developers - which compounds the hiring difficulties of most small companies including almost every start-up. Oh and there's massive conglomerates with near infinite resources (Google, AMZ, FB, MS) hoarding top tier talent - which plays into developer validation of who the top 20% is.

It's a mess, and it paints a single reality. The tech industry isn't as easy to break into as pop culture has labeled it over the past decade, and in my view it won't be getting any easier... sorry to the younger generation paying big $$$ for a CS degree.

Isn't the problem the high turnover rate in the industry? Why invest in educating someone if they are going to quit in one year or so?