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Who Killed the Junior Developer?

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Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#71

Post by CryoLogic »

emodendroket wrote: post #70
CryoLogic wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely. But in a vacuum, the developer who codes outside of work probably has more knowledge and experience than the developer who works 40h/week and goes off to other things. Even considering diminishing returns.

Yes and no. I think somebody a little more well-rounded may have other soft skills that are also important.

Yeah that's true, hence in a vacuum. If you want someone to do nothing but code - the person who codes the most often will take the cake.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#72

Post by crimsonalucard »

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 are differences in skill between developers. Titles rarely reflect this though. Titles mostly reflect politics, perception and luck.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#73

Post by brett40324 »

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…

> I think the "Junior" title is used entirely by companies to get a discount at salary negotiations these days.

I think there's some truth here. What I consider some proof of this, is an unsolicited recruiter email I received today. The role was called junior web developer, a $25.00/hr contract only position, but listed a mathematics or CS degree as a requirement. Like, am I nuts to think this is preposterous?

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#74

Post by emodendroket »

PeterisP wrote: post #65
emodendroket wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think someone necessarily has to live and breathe code to be good at their job. That kind of focus is hard to maintain forever. When I was new I was constantly reading programming books and now, like, I'm still interested, but other things are going on in my life that also need my attention, you know?

You can lead a horse to the water but you can't make him drink. It's completely okay to "just" do your job professionally. However, skill development, transfer of skills to junior developers and mentoring is a different issue - if you want to learn from me, you have to want to learn; if you're just here for the paycheck, then I'm not going to go out of my way to educate you even if (which is the case for many junior…

I can see your perspective. I think we're kind of talking at cross purposes here. I think it's reasonable to expect someone who needs mentoring to pay attention and want to learn. What I don't like is this idea that you need to spend every waking hour on programming or you're just a clocker who has nothing to contribute to a serious team.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#75

Post by AFNobody »

CydeWeys wrote: post #61
mooreds wrote: post #39

It is a tragedy of the commons scenario. Everyone wants senior devs, who were at one point junior devs. No one wants to train junior devs. The OP points out why: * cheaper to have juniorish work done overseas * juniorish work is automated away * juniors on a team slow it down (compared to a team of all seniors) So everyone competes for the senior talent. A more sophisticated long term analysis might look at the benef…

A key point that you're missing is that junior devs are likely to jump ship at least once in their career trajectory before they become senior devs. So yes, junior devs do need to be trained by someone , but if you're going to put in a lot of work and not receive much of the benefit, it's not in your best interest. There's a variety of reasons for why devs jump ship so often (including compensation), but unless you c…

Market rate compensation, non-toxic culture, and realistic expectations for work output solves 90% of the reasons reasonable people leave jobs.

People claim all sorts of reasons for leaving jobs but its always one of those three or uncertainty about company longevity. (i.e. acquisition/financial difficulties for the company)

The other 10% is people who are naive or have a family/relocation related issue that you can never control for.

And yes, before you say it is impossible, I've worked at a company where "voluntary quits" was _that_ low and no one voluntarily left because they knew how good they had it. Literally, in a team of 20+ I knew all 3 people who voluntarily quit over the span of 10 years there.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#76

Post by zerkten »

Firebrand wrote: post #31
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…

How would you feel about mentoring non-technical people? Uber seems to be piloting an apprenticeship program for people from non-technical backgrounds: https://eng.uber.com/engineer-apprentices/ I don’t really know why Uber is doing it, but I wonder if in-house apprenticeship programs are going to become more of thing now.

> How would you feel about mentoring non-technical people?

I'm not sure what you mean by "non-technical" people. Didn't we all start at zero technical skill? If Uber have gone about this the right way and have some motivated hires with some of the right basic competency then they should do well.

In terms of technical mentoring I'd be very happy to engage with individuals inside a program like this. It's a very different story when you've got someone who was originally hired for a different role and you are tasked with helping them make the jump from a non-technical role to technical one. This can fail for a number of reasons, but it often boils down to motivation, and the individuals might have been better quitting to do something like a bootcamp.

I will say that I have gotten a lot of benefit from coaching/mentoring non-technical people on specific things. An example would be teaching a customer success manager how to capture useful info from the browser dev tools. They have a superpower and that results in them getting better troubleshooting info to help customers.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#77

Post by emodendroket »

CryoLogic wrote: post #71
emodendroket wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. I think somebody a little more well-rounded may have other soft skills that are also important.

Yeah that's true, hence in a vacuum. If you want someone to do nothing but code - the person who codes the most often will take the cake.

You almost never want that though. Every job I've ever done involved communicating with stakeholders and team mates, working out requirements, resolving disagreements, etc.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#78

Post by crimsonalucard »

cyberpanther wrote: post #11

I teach at a Bootcamp and see a lot junior developers looking for jobs. Many of them complain of it being hard to find jobs and it is. But I don’t think it is any harder than say 10 years ago when I got started. The main the problem is they’ve never interviewed for a technical position before or aren’t looking in the right places for jobs. Also a lot of jobs are perfectly suited for juniors but it doesn’t reflect tha…

I think bootcamps are flooding the market with juniors. This may be the source of the issue. It could be a supply side issue. Too many juniors leads to the perception that nobody is hiring juniors.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#79

Post by emodendroket »

cyberpanther wrote: post #56
emodendroket wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I did it the free route but I considered a boot camp a bit just for the network, so that's where I'm coming from.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#80

Post by Clubber »

PeterisP wrote: post #65
emodendroket wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think someone necessarily has to live and breathe code to be good at their job. That kind of focus is hard to maintain forever. When I was new I was constantly reading programming books and now, like, I'm still interested, but other things are going on in my life that also need my attention, you know?

You can lead a horse to the water but you can't make him drink. It's completely okay to "just" do your job professionally. However, skill development, transfer of skills to junior developers and mentoring is a different issue - if you want to learn from me, you have to want to learn; if you're just here for the paycheck, then I'm not going to go out of my way to educate you even if (which is the case for many junior…

This. Mentoring should just be pointing people in a direction and occasional code review. Go do this (for a few days). Let's see what you did. This is good, this should be that, name your variables better, etc.

If you let juniors figure it out the hard way, they will learn better, or they will fail. If they fail to learn by themselves, they will never become senior.*

*Shitty code bases should be given a lot of leeway on the learning curve.

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