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Who Killed the Junior Developer?

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Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#121

Post by gowld »

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…

You can be willing to learn and still have work/life boundaries.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#122

Post by derrekl »

The problem is squashed salaries. I’ll have junior devs or people straight out of code school asking for 75-80% the salary of a solid senior dev. If I have to make a bet on who will be easier to manage and get productive 4 seniors vs 5 juniors for the same total expenditure I’ll choose the seniors every time. Even at 2 to 1 I’m taking seniors. Maybe around 3 or 4 to 1 juniors might look better. But that means junior starting salaries around 50k which no one is taking. Salary range is too squashed in the industy.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#123

Post by kilroy123 »

CryoLogic wrote: post #17

The growth of undergrand CS program enrollment is pretty insane, same with bootcamps. Lots of these people have no real interest in the positions outside of pay, which is fine for most careers. But in tech we put a lot of value on self learning and interest. I've definitely seen the number of new grad applicants and bootcamp grad applicants at least quadruple in the past few years. Most of these can make an Angular a…

People in my life have expressed interest in becoming developers and going to bootcamps, and such.

I tell them, it's not really a job, it's more of a lifestyle. You need to love learning, tinkering, and hacking. Want to go to conferences and play around with pet projects. It's a forever evolving field.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#124

Post by leetrout »

What I run into over and over are largely attitude issues in all parties involved.

"Junior" is not an insult nor does it / should it demand an insulting salary level. I don't look at someone's title and think "they must be bad" or "I am better than them" etc etc but I see that attitude a lot. I see seniors take interesting work for themselves, I see them shove off juniors and I see juniors complain about the work they have to do.

And even worse is when someone holds the explicit junior title they are only interested in getting the senior title. Then we have seniors that shouldn't have that in their title feeling threatened by who does and doesn't have / get sr added to their title. It's all a dreadful game and I'm tired of playing it.

As others have said- I enjoy mentoring. I'm not ashamed that I enjoy someone taking the time to listen to me and what I have to say. I have 13 years of mistakes I can share. I don't enjoy working with people that are only interested in the "title game" and that complain about the types of work they have to do. We're all paid very well to do the type of work we do and ultimately we're paid to do what the company asks of us. We don't have to believe it's the grandest technical challenge of all time yet I see Jrs complain they aren't given the "big work" without realizing they don't know what they don't know- they just see some sort of prestige associated with it.

And shame on the seniors for taking work that is interesting to others first and shame on management for not making time for a junior to tackle a bigger task. I do feel for Jr engineers that get stuck in the cycle of doing menial tasks because no one makes time for them to make mistakes.

If you've got Sr in your title did you get it by being hired in to the title or by earning it in some fashion? Did you earn it by being a workaholic? Did you earn it by putting in time with the same organization? Did you earn it by growing your responsibilities? Ultimately- who helped you do it? Who gave you the chances and which manager wasn't threatened by you and allowed you to be promoted? Try to imitate those values and lead by example. Sadly I see a lot of insecure engineers who don't want to help and would never stand for a coworker, not the least someone they helped mentor, surpass them. And it IS a shame.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#125

Post by sidlls »

whiskyant wrote: post #113
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…

I don't think dedicated mentorship is required for junior devs. There's usually code reviews in which they can pick up on a lot, a mountain of resources online, and there's nothing stopping them from asking for help/opinions from fellow co-workers when tackling a problem.

Junior programmers may not (even probably don't) have a good idea of what questions to even ask. Younger juniors (e.g. right out of college) may even feel intimated or anxious that their question is "stupid". This isn't helped by the software industry's reputation (well deserved, in my opinion) of being populated by arrogant people with little or no tact or empathy.

Reliance on online resources is, in my view not a substitute for experienced mentorship: there is the paradox of choice, and the plethora that creates this paradox is of generally poor quality. Except for textbook or trivial problems, moreover, much of the resource material online is too generic or only marginally applicable to the depth and breadth of technology issues that face a real business and its needs.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#126

Post by _s »

emodendroket wrote: post #41
zbentley wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't think you're a bad person for doing those things, can you see how this (repeated by enough people) produces the new-entrant-hostile hiring environment we currently have?

Sure, but I think it would be foolish to do otherwise. I was new once too, and even after I'd done my first job people were hesitant to call me back with no relevant degree and my only experience being in a small shop mostly working alone (for significantly less than the market rate, I should add). Now I managed to make my way past that gauntlet and I'm enjoying the fruits of my labors as a "senior" developer. I don'…

Absolutely! Though would you still consider yourself a "senior" developer, if a "mid-level" or "junior" starts working with you and happens to exceed your skillset in very noticeable ways? I know I've hired some exceedingly excellent programmers that made me feel rather amateurish!

I guess what I'm trying to say titles are fairly arbitrary - and yes, the system is in need of a little shake up! Enjoy the perks the title brings, and stay humble :)

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#127

Post by [deleted] »

zerkten wrote: post #76
Firebrand wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 differ…

[deleted]

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#128

Post by dev_throw »

ajmurmann wrote: post #105

Having recently had to do a lot of hiring and also played too much FIFA, I couldn't help but wonder if a argument couldn't be made for software engineering job contacts to work more like soccer player contracts. One issue is you might hire a junior dev, train them and just when they start to provide value BigCorp makes them an offer they can't refuse and you are left with the bill. If on the other hand the was a cont…

I thought about this idea too, but in practice, this should be what equity/options is designed for. So, a promising developer at small company A gets a lower salary, but greater share of equity that he/she has to forgo if they leave the company before they can vest their options.

But in reality, the amount of equity offered by most startups to junior developers is negligible, and is too low to form any sort of incentive to stay. Perhaps offering them a clear contract with lock in would make things more clear, but enforcing (no moonlighting) might be illegal in some states/countries.

PS. if you ever end up playing PES on the PS4, give me a shout!

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#129

Post by JumpCrisscross »

aerotwelve wrote: post #109
wlesieutre wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once they're trained up to a point where another company is willing to pay them more for a more senior position, you could give them a raise? Congrats! You trained a junior dev and they turned into a senior dev.

This is the answer, but they just won't listen. Management at so many firms have convinced themselves that developers leave because of all these magical reasons that aren't either 1) they're dissatisfied with their pay and you're not listening 2) they're dissatisfied with their working conditions (bullpens or open offices anyone?) so they'll never keep their best people and they'll never learn.

> This is the answer, but they just won't listen

Is there a counterfactual? A company with a strong culture of promoting from within that outperforms as a likely result of this attribute?

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#130

Post by mistermann »

twblalock wrote: post #44
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…

> 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. It's a bit of a leap to conclude that on the basis that you weren't asked by management to mentor junior devs. In fact, it's possible management assumed you would do mentoring and didn't need to be told.

Do you read the newspaper? Watch TV? Have you genuinely not noticed an increase in short term thinking and f*ck you, got mine mentality in North America?

If not, over what time span are you considering?

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