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Who Killed the Junior Developer?

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Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#371

Post by jschwartzi »

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.

3) They're dissatisfied with how they are managed.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#372

Post by protonimitate »

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…

How to you filter out those who are genuinely interested in self learning and motivated to keep up with evolving software trends vs. salary chasers? And more importantly, how can someone from a self-taught background convey that they are not just chasing salaries, but have a real interest in this stuff?

I fear that there is a bias in the industry that bootcampers = salary chasers and CS undergrads = real deal, when I've seen (anecdotally) a huge uptick in people entering CS undergrad programs just for the high salaries fresh out of school.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#373

Post by hacker_9 »

vinceguidry wrote: post #364

There were never any junior dev jobs. You have always had to lie, cheat, and steal your way into the field. I have a buddy who legit cheated his way to the top Magento certification and now cycles through $150k+ jobs where they keep him on long enough to realize he doesn't have any coding skills then they fire him. Reason is software is always an ancillary concern to the business. You see this in other fields, like s…

Depends on the business of course. Try getting interviewed by competent developers, they'll quickly find the holes.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#374

Post by purerandomness »

g051051 wrote: post #367
purerandomness wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I can point to my well documented track record: code reviews, bonuses, promotions, code longevity, metrics, etc. as evidence. I can code multiple features in the time that a junior dev does one, even with me mentoring them. That doesn't mean they're bad, or even worse than average. It just means that after a career spent honing my craft, I'm much better than average.

I wasn't questioning your seniority.

I pointed out how you decided to pick out a totally irrelevant, rhetorical sentence out of all points that OP made, and then decided to refute that, by claiming how much experience you have, and setting up yourself center stage, instead of adding value to the actual discussion topic at hand, which is the coaching gap.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#375

Post by padobson »

vinceguidry wrote: post #364

There were never any junior dev jobs. You have always had to lie, cheat, and steal your way into the field. I have a buddy who legit cheated his way to the top Magento certification and now cycles through $150k+ jobs where they keep him on long enough to realize he doesn't have any coding skills then they fire him. Reason is software is always an ancillary concern to the business. You see this in other fields, like s…

I love that you pointed out the need for political strength within organizations. I agree, and I think it directly conflicts with this line from the post:

Yeah, I’m gonna bring gender into it, because I’m a woman and when women take on roles like this they often get pigeonholed into “den mother” stereotypes. That means less prestige and less prestige usually means less pay.

Having the admiration and respect of the next generation of developers at your company offers far more leverage than the nebulous prestige. If you mentor three engineers, that's three warm bodies at your company who will have good things to say when asked about you. If you do a good job, you now have a team of four capable engineers who can get things done.

What could provide more organizational political power than building a hierarchy of capable engineers that consistently come to you when they need help?

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#376

Post by JoeAltmaier »

padobson wrote: post #375
vinceguidry wrote: post #364

There were never any junior dev jobs. You have always had to lie, cheat, and steal your way into the field. I have a buddy who legit cheated his way to the top Magento certification and now cycles through $150k+ jobs where they keep him on long enough to realize he doesn't have any coding skills then they fire him. Reason is software is always an ancillary concern to the business. You see this in other fields, like s…

I love that you pointed out the need for political strength within organizations. I agree, and I think it directly conflicts with this line from the post: Yeah, I’m gonna bring gender into it, because I’m a woman and when women take on roles like this they often get pigeonholed into “den mother” stereotypes. That means less prestige and less prestige usually means less pay. Having the admiration and respect of the ne…

Don't see anything said that's incompatible with the 'Den mother' stigma. If its about pay and promotion, not about being friendly with Engineers, then you want to avoid the role that won't be respected.

You can't imagine all the ways management can dismiss women's actions - "she's a great connector in that department. Let's leave her there, that's working great." or "sure she's got all the guys eating out of her hand. But lets talk leadership - Bob has got everybody afraid of him! Lets promote Bob"

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#378

Post by ritchiea »

Beltiras wrote: post #285
rabidrat wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system is flawed.

Perpetually flawed. No matter how much resources you throw at fixing it.

There's a huge difference between "no system is perfect" and "the dominant process for development work in our industry completely ignores work that nurtures employees into being better employees."

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#379

Post by vinceguidry »

hacker_9 wrote: post #373
vinceguidry wrote: post #364

There were never any junior dev jobs. You have always had to lie, cheat, and steal your way into the field. I have a buddy who legit cheated his way to the top Magento certification and now cycles through $150k+ jobs where they keep him on long enough to realize he doesn't have any coding skills then they fire him. Reason is software is always an ancillary concern to the business. You see this in other fields, like s…

Depends on the business of course. Try getting interviewed by competent developers, they'll quickly find the holes.

I used to believe this, now I'm skeptical. Even if they find holes in the developer's competence, interviewing is not a task, it's a business process orchestrated and controlled by middle management. Say the competent developer finds holes in the interviewee's knowledge and skills, his findings become a line item in the report passed up to said middle management.

The middle manager, hopefully not in HR, has to weigh all the items in the report, and as a result the actual skill level of the developer gets buried deep, under cultural factors and attitude. There's also the human aspect, does Jimmy Mid-Level know how to raise issues with an interviewee's competence convincingly? If he doesn't, his concerns are likely to get written off.

This all ties back to the lack of political cover that software development shops in non-technically oriented organizations usually exhibit. Developers need to be in those middle management positions if they want their concerns to be taken seriously.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#380

Post by tboyd47 »

vinceguidry wrote: post #364

There were never any junior dev jobs. You have always had to lie, cheat, and steal your way into the field. I have a buddy who legit cheated his way to the top Magento certification and now cycles through $150k+ jobs where they keep him on long enough to realize he doesn't have any coding skills then they fire him. Reason is software is always an ancillary concern to the business. You see this in other fields, like s…

Ok, the first part of your comment makes no sense to me. How do you lie your way into a certification? An interview I can understand, but don't you have to take a test to get a cert?

From the second paragraph down, you're absolutely right for non-software companies. They still don't have an understanding of how to build software development into their business model. They don't realize that the low barrier entry to building software does not mean it is a low-cost, low-risk endeavor, nor do they understand how to extract value from a completed software project. They go straight from "Bob the executive has a cool idea," to, "Let's hire 3 full-time devs."

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