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Who Killed the Junior Developer?

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Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#331

Post by humanrebar »

virgilp wrote: post #293
dalbasal wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I've seen with mentoring, in practice, is the 1 in 3 juniors that takes up all the time. Maybe the particular job doesn't suit them. Maybe they shouldn't be a dev. Maybe it's personality. Some managers, mentors or such seem to deal with this well. But, in the cases that I've seen having an employee that is not producing value is stressful and time consuming. Largely, it's driven by empathy. You don't want…

> You hire for needs in the next 12 months. That's like, your opinion, man. Why can't you hire long-term? If all you plan for is short-term, it will only work short-term, and it should be no surprise if on the longer term you fail or you find yourself in a world of pain. > I see this as a byproduct of product development time. MVP and its associated stuff... It's all about short horizons, I think you severely misunde…

> Why can't you hire long-term?

You can, but I have never been offered a multi-year employment contract. Employers seem to prefer the flexibility of being able to terminate employment sooner than that.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#333

Post by mooreds »

Declanomous wrote: post #139
aerotwelve wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's because fixing 1 and 2 are really expensive. On top of that, the further removed someone is from the work being done, the more they want people to look "busy". I got moved from a desk in in a dead end office with to a desk in a bullpen so that I could be "closer to the people who I work with." My performance fell off a cliff. People would stop by all the time to check up on things, there was always a conversat…

> That's because fixing 1 and 2 are really expensive.

Re point #1, I simply don't understand how, long term, it is more cost efficient to hire and train someone entirely new than it is to build a culture of valuing current staff. Maybe I'm naive? Maybe it is difficult in ways I don't perceive?

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#334

Post by mooreds »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #129
aerotwelve wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

GE used to do this (not developers, but generally) in the 1980s, I think. Here's an article about promoting CEOs from within and how that is beneficial: http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/companies-...

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#335

Post by purerandomness »

g051051 wrote: post #318
virgilp wrote: post #223

> we don’t hire junior developers because we can’t afford to have our senior developers mentor them. That feels too dumb to be real (which is exactly why it's probably a real thing). You don't hire senior devs to code - good junior devs can code not only "just as fast", but probably faster too! You hire senior devs to guide you WHAT and HOW to code. And they can do that so much more effectively if they don't have to…

> good junior devs can code not only "just as fast", but probably faster too! Pfft. I'm about as "senior" as it gets and I'm generally the fastest developer in any team I'm on. I've never met a junior dev that could hold a candle to me, and most senior devs I know are the same...we're coding monsters.

Dunning-Kruger called, they want their overblown ego steamroller back.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#336

Post by Game_Ender »

collyw wrote: post #272
loorinm wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it expensive to solve the bullpen issue? Tell people to STFU or build a wall in the office, or at least put up some dividers. It’s not rocket science. Most CEOs and VPs are idiots, handing money around to each other in a circle jerk of old white guys club, backslapping each other for hiring each other and keeping the hegemony going. These idiots do not know what they are doing, they have just been conditioned…

I am surprised no companies offer noise cancelling headphones for staff. They are relatively cheap (compared to restructuring an office building) and could increase productivity a lot for some people.

Those headphones only block constant background noise, not conversations. In order to do that you have to put your hearing at risk with enough actual noise to overwhelm the rest.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#338

Post by pestaa »

nidx wrote: post #98

When I hire, It's ONLY junior devs. I prefer just out of University before they can get bad habits. Training a dev takes me 6-12 months for them to break even productivity wise. When we have had intermediate or seniors hired they would not listen to anyone else or care if their software was easy to maintain in the future. I run a small team of 6, I have had 0 turnover for 3-4 years. I don't want devs who "get it done…

Not listening to feedback and ignoring future maintainability sounds like the exact opposite of senior behavior.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#340

Post by cr1895 »

teddythetwig wrote: post #288
zemanel wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my current job, for a tech company with less than 12 people, at least 5 are interns. Two of them were recent hires (January) and before they were onboarded, i had a meeting with my boss and the other senior developer regarding the new interns and my boss stated he didn’t want me and other senior dev spending too much time mentoring the interns and that if they couldn’t manage by themselves, he would just let them…

Just want to point out that often the interns will receive additional compensation from their programs. When we hire interns from Erasmus+, they are given 500 euro from us, as well as 500 euro from their program. Additionally, Erasmus students are eligible for student housing from UvA or the VU. Finally, because they are in a special class, as interns, here in NL, we can actually get in trouble with the government fo…

>Finally, because they are in a special class, as interns, here in NL, we can actually get in trouble with the government for paying them more than 500 euro.

Hmm...I don't think you are correct, or possibly you are misconstruing a limited, special case to generally apply.

From my own experience I earned more than 600eur as an intern in the NL, and I had classmates who earned full minimum wage as interns too (~1200eur).

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