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Who Killed the Junior Developer?

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Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#51

Post by cyberpanther »

emodendroket wrote: post #27
cyberpanther wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

totally agree. I would say a good 10-20% do have some kind of contact in the industry though and get a job that way.

Honestly, I think a lot of what you are paying for with the boot camp is the promise that their network and industry contacts will help you. Otherwise it's pretty much impossible (at least in my view) to justify those tuition rates.

Oh yeah watch out for bootcamps that juice their placement stats by hiring their own grads a lot. It's normal to hire a few grads for teaching assistants but if you see more than that be weary.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#52

Post by torbjorn »

mac01021 wrote: post #40
adjkant wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. If you're graduating without an internship or two, you're in trouble.

Define "trouble". I'm ten years into my career now, but I graduated with no internships and feel like I've done OK.

I think he is referring to people entering the field now. If they don't have internships then it will be hard for them to compete with others vying for Junior Dev positions that have done internships.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#53

Post by behindmyscreen »

I like the premise of the article. I think bean counting, short sighted companies killed the junior dev....and that role died a long time ago in many places (even farther back than 2010).

I also think the article needs some copy editing. A few paragraphs were rough to get through.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#54

Post by Apocryphon »

broodbucket wrote: post #33

Is the junior job shortage just a valley bubble thing? I'm a young dev and there are grad/entry level positions everywhere I look, none of my peers have really had issues either. How good (or bad) companies are at actually training their employees is another matter. edit: typo

Well, where are you based at?

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#55

Post by emodendroket »

maxxxxx wrote: post #50
emodendroket wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, fair enough. I agree with you; I also like to challenge myself with new things. But I like to go home at the end of the day too, you know? Sometimes I think programmer culture gets too self-flagellating.

I hate the whole side-project-after-work thing. Unless you have a real business idea to pursue I think 40 hours per week of focused work is plenty. There are a lot of other cool things in life.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm getting at.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#56

Post by cyberpanther »

emodendroket wrote: post #43
cyberpanther wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at long term value, the tuition is really nothing. At a good bootcamp even without any industry contacts you will probably have a job in 6 months. Sure your salary will be lower than a CS grad, but you'll also have way less debt. But yes look at placement rates at any bootcamp before joining. If people are getting jobs then it's well worth it.

Right, I suppose what I mean to say is, if you were "just" learning how to program, it probably wouldn't be worth it, because you could learn just as well on your own for practically nothing (order some books on Abebooks and watch some videos on Coursera and you've got a decent curriculum). But if you do that you haven't made any contacts and don't have anyone to vouch for your skills.

A good analogy is a bootcamp is like a personal trainer. Sure you could do jumping jacks yourself but when someone yells at you to get them done, you do it more often and faster. Some people need that extra push through.

But yes some people have plenty of self motivation and can do it themselves. The career networking is really all they need then.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#57

Post by pan69 »

My personal experience with this is that the ratio matters A LOT. I.e. having juniors out number the seniors is bad.

When you have a team that mostly consist of junior and mid-level developers, then they will clique together and they will mostly likely "behave" like juniors. Typical junior behaviour is e.g. to rather than digging into the backlog for the next thing to work on when you're done with one thing, to just sit around and wait for a senior to give you the next task.

However, if you have a team of seniors, who behave like seniors, adding one junior to this team, the junior will in no-time start to behave like a senior. Act by example. Before you know it you will have a really valuable team member.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#58

Post by s73v3r_ »

tensor wrote: post #14
aphextron wrote: post #9

I think the "Junior" title is used entirely by companies to get a discount at salary negotiations these days. I work with a large mix of mid level, senior, and "Junior" developers by title. The practical difference in our technical skill levels is almost nonexistent. The proper progression should be: Intern -> Developer -> Senior/Lead, with Senior/Lead denoting that certain expectations are made of your organizationa…

There is absolutely a skill difference between senior and junior. The problem is that junior developers today somehow think they deserve mid or senior level salaries despite not having the skills. Developers are being told not only that higher level skills like algorithms and big-oh don't matter, but that they are such special people that they can even do jobs completely outside of their specialty like design, manage…

"The problem is that junior developers today somehow think they deserve mid or senior level salaries despite not having the skills."

If other companies are willing to pay those salaries, why would you say they don't deserve them?

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#59

Post by TheDauthi »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #6

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 firs…

This... has made me realize how lucky I am. I do get asked to mentor our junior people, and I also enjoy the look on people's faces when they get that sudden realization of how something works. And I like explaining how things work anyway; I find it's the second-best way to realize what pieces of the system -I- don't know.

And - being perfectly honest about myself - I also enjoy the (brief and usually undeserved) "wow, he's a wizard!" that I get right before - just as a random example that has nothing to do with today - spending two hours trying to debug why some simple iptables rules don't work without testing that the network was working before adding them.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#60

Post by dsfyu404ed »

tensor wrote: post #14
aphextron wrote: post #9

I think the "Junior" title is used entirely by companies to get a discount at salary negotiations these days. I work with a large mix of mid level, senior, and "Junior" developers by title. The practical difference in our technical skill levels is almost nonexistent. The proper progression should be: Intern -> Developer -> Senior/Lead, with Senior/Lead denoting that certain expectations are made of your organizationa…

There is absolutely a skill difference between senior and junior. The problem is that junior developers today somehow think they deserve mid or senior level salaries despite not having the skills. Developers are being told not only that higher level skills like algorithms and big-oh don't matter, but that they are such special people that they can even do jobs completely outside of their specialty like design, manage…

I don't think you know many lawyers. Lawyers tend to have a lot of depth and little breadth of knowledge. They specialize. Most good computer people have one or two things the specialize in.
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