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Who Killed the Junior Developer?

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Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#341
post #102

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.

That's true but it also misses the point: A portion of the limited money-pool you could have used for their raise is already gone, spend in the extra costs (direct or opportunity) of the training period. There isn't much of a "raw mercenary economics" argument for training (which the MBA types prefer), you've got to talk about intangibles like loyalty, goodwill, social connections, etc.

The "raw mercenary economics" argument is saved money on recruitment/and allowing better calibration of performance to salary.

Consider the costs associated with recruiting for a single role. You have to either advertise a role/filter out candidates or engage a recruiter (which costs time or money). You have to interview a number of people, taking time (money).

You then have to onboard that person, and choose a salary based on your limited knowledge about them. And even then you could still hire a lemon (although admittedly it could go the other way and you hire someone better than expeceted). You then have to wait for them to become productive in the new organisation.

You also have much better information about someone who has worked at your organisation for a longer period of time and can therefore tailor their salary better to their skills than for someone who you know nothing about.

Spending money on training is a predictable cost vs. an unknown future cost of hiring. And yes, people will also appreciate it as an intangible, which if you are 'mercenary' you can enumerate as a supplement to a certain amount of salary.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#342
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Code review is horrible way to teach. Especially with reviewers common in tech who just can't tell difference between differences of opinion and crappy code. Or difference between "how I would did it" and bad code.

What you said is basically a tautology. "This method of mentoring won't work if you have bad mentors". The person you're describing shouldn't be mentoring. The problem isn't the methodology, but their personality being poorly suited to the task at hand. This industry frequently conflates effective producers of lines of code, with an ability to function in a senior role. If you look at other lines of work, seniority o…

1.) Depending on the team, code review is either done by everyone non-junior or by the people most responsible for code base and expected to know most about it. It is last approve/reject step before admitting code.

So yes, this person will do code review. And code review has more functions then mentoring.

2.) Mentoring starts on task selection. Latest when junior start working on it - with senior occasionally checking the junior out while the task is in progress. Code reviewer might be someone completely else who might have noticed that junior is working on code only after it is done.

Sane mentoring should not start when junior finished the work.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there no room to fight management or make them understand?

High probability of “not productive effort”, i’m fighting my own rather serious battle with management at the moment. On further note, before i started the contract i was asked to bring my own laptop as work computer, i didn’t necessarily agree (for all the obvious reasons as security and business/personal risk) but he was being pushy about i said i could take my laptop (at least to get started) and i was expecting t…

I have worked on my own laptop for a while (due to startup lack of money, it was either wage or the laptop at some point due to liquidity issues), with one point made to my employer: All copyright on work done on my laptop belongs to me, and only me. You can 'rent' it by paying me my wage but as soon as I leave, all code on it is mine and I'm taking it with me for future 'reference'. Don't know how this works legally but since I'm not a self employed person who has a business contract, I'm pretty sure you cannot legally force someone to use their own stuff without compensation.

I told them they could pay me a compensation (for using/bringing my own tools) but that is quite expensive since most deductions don't count for this. Even more expensive than buying a proper laptop. Quite quickly I got a proper company laptop after finances improved to resolve the issue.

On another note:

In my experience the term 'middle management' is a synonym for corrupt, useless idiots so getting rid of them saves huge amounts of money since they add no value to any product or to the company as a whole. Unfortunately there is no way to even moderately grow within most companies around here except for a management track which is idiotic since specialists are way more valuable to the gross product of the company.

and: Never underestimate the value of skilled workers and how to keep them or train them. In software they are your main business. Everything else is easily replaceable.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#344
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.

You aren't graduating then are you? You graduated ten years ago. So they weren't addressing you.

I didn't do a single internship either when I was doing my undergraduate either. I wouldn't recommend doing that to young people in a million years now.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High probability of “not productive effort”, i’m fighting my own rather serious battle with management at the moment. On further note, before i started the contract i was asked to bring my own laptop as work computer, i didn’t necessarily agree (for all the obvious reasons as security and business/personal risk) but he was being pushy about i said i could take my laptop (at least to get started) and i was expecting t…

> which they are in their full right to do They seem to be scamming the shareholders diverting money from productive investment into their self worth. It's not your problem, but it's not in their full right to do either.

I do not believe they have shareholders. Afaik, the company business model is around providing tech services for humanitarian aid institutions and at least some revenue comes from that type of donor funding

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I have a hard time believing that you will get in trouble for hiring interns and compensate them more than 500 euros. In the NL you aren't even obliged to give them any compensation and if you are compensating them you are free to do so as much as you'd wish. Internships in the Netherlands are akin to modern slavery imo. You work full time and with luck you get a compensation of 500 euros a month,though often no comp…

Normative answer (in Dutch), I have no practical experience either way: https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/minimumloon/vraag-e...

Your employer has no obligation to compensate for your internship, but is not prohibited either. There is no minimum or maximum amount set for this compensation.

The focus for internship should be on training, not work. If the Inspectie SZW (employment auditor) finds that the internship consisted of mostly paid work, the employer will be ordered to salary the intern according to normal wages [effectively, minimum wage].

However, there is a practical limit to compensation: students earning more than E20,000 a year are no longer eligible for the student loans you mention.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#347
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comeon now, there are more reasons than that for people to leave, like a new exciting opportunity appearing.

> a new exciting opportunity You mean a salary or title increase? Yeah, that's in the GP's comment.

No, like a project or team you really want to work on for any number of reasons other than salary or title.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#348
To be honest "Junior Developer" doesn't make any sense. Its just a way of saying out loud hey this developer doesn't have too much experience and he's not that knowledgeable compared to other Senior developers. And honestly I have seen "junior developers" being way ahead of senior developers.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#349
Do people really think this is a problem? I feel like everyone is taking the article at face value instead of reading between the lines: people don't want to hire bootcamp grads.

Developers fresh out of college with a BA in computer science have no problem getting a job.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a bias and as such deals with probabilities. It doesn't mean any given individual says they're the best (in their neck of the woods) at something is definitely wrong.
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