You are confusing senior devs and rockstar devs. Rockstars are lone wolves, write unmaintainable code that works quickly for demos but gives the company pain for years to come as nobody can figure out how to make it stable or maintain it. A rockstar's reputation is self reinforcing because it's easy to get a lot of shit done when one doesn't have to worry about maintainability, communication with the rest of the team…
You hire the rockstar to write version 1. That's the one that gets you to market fast, and the one you should be planning on throwing away. It's the one you keep in production as your non-rockstar ninja and guru coders write version 2 from scratch. Once you release version 2, you really need to fire your rockstar. They will never be happy in maintenance mode, and that's fine, because they're usually bad at writing fo…
This is one of the best summaries of software development practices I've seen. It's maybe even the way it should work.
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…
My "standard" team typically has two jr engineers, and two Sr engineers. When we hire Sr engineers we hire people that like to mentor others and see it as part of being Sr. Jr engineers know that in order to become Sr one of the skills they need to master is mentoring. This is 100% a management issue, and it starts at the hiring filter. Hiring Jrs btw is its own skill as you are filtering for potential not skill or k…
How many women hired would be enough to satisfy those roles you mention?
This is a symptom of managers not understanding the jobs of the people they're managing. I don't know if that kind of management works under any circumstances, but it definitely can't work if people who don't understand programming (and I specifically mean programming, no matter how well they understand the rest of a developer's job) are managing junior developers.
Of course it is. But in most organizations, managers do not understand software development. That competence is extremely hard to hire.
I'm fortunate to work for a manager who is a half-time developer. He's really good at interviewing people, and finding out if they're what we want.
God no. I don't want to be mandated to strike and pout over not getting enough money. As long as I am treated fairly (I am) and paid fairly (I am), I am not paying any percentage to some company to tell me to screw over my employer. If some company wants to unionize, have fun but I am not joining that party.
Have you ever been in a union? > "...pout over not getting enough money" You're trying to make striking sound childish but there are plenty of legitimate reasons why unions go on strike.
>Have you ever been in a union?
No. There is a reason I went into software development and not blue-collar work. ;)
(Nothing wrong with it, just not the stuff I want to deal with. Unions included. I lose enough money already to the gov't.)
I'll see your management issue and raise you a leadership one. At my last job, a $40MM cosmetics and skincare company, the CEO had a great deal of trouble figuring out how to get his e-commerce department properly managed. I was willing to step up, and for a brief time they allowed me to bring in candidates for a position that would report to me, but I didn't have enough political cover over me so that fizzled out. I…
E-commerce is unique in that it has such a massive impact on revenue generation, but the skills needed to effectively manage it are rarely inline with the core competencies of the business. Most companies attempt to tackle this problem in house, but without proper expertise, there is massive waste in hiring and poor execution. As a consultant, I’ve seen teams waste _years_ fumbling in this cycle, only for me to ship…
Well put.
Do you still do consulting?
Please reach me at brandon {at} brandonreiss {dot} com to explore an opportunity with a small e-commerce retailer/wholesaler.
That's why I've always told people that I'm a "studio musician" developer. Not a rock star, but a competent professional the studio calls when they need to make a record.
That's what I'd been saying for a while -- the best devs are session musicians. They have enough all-around comoetence to deliver what is asked for for that particular recording.
Normaly session musicians are better than rock stars James Jameson (funk brothers) was a better bassist than Paul McCartney, and Paul would admit that.
I have worked with a Musician with Phd in music who taught him self coding after an accident broke all the bones in his feet (drink had been taken)
It was fun in the pub when some hit tracks came on he would say ah I think that's one of mine :-)
As a woman currently applying/interviewing for a new grad role, I think you're definitely right about most companies caring only about current knowledge/skill.
Why is that bad? Jobs should be filled based on skill/knowledge. (The ability to learn is a skill too, one that means what you know currently matters less). I take slight offence to your statement. Why is being a woman relevant to anything, unless your company is going for 50/50 male female. But in my opinion that is wrong, and amounts to sex discrimination against men, because if 50% of roles are filled by men, even…
This is just the current zeitgeist we live in right now. In my prior career as an electrician, I didn't see any of this brought up by my employer/industry, but now that I'm a software developer, I see it all the time. I think that might be because the work of an electrician is more physical and labor-intensive, and therefore not very enticing to a lot of women looking to enter the workforce.
Are these just basic junior devs, or are they specialists in another field with multiple advanced degrees from top tier schools ($$$) and professional experience in that other field? (law, medicine, the arts) and (Yale, Princeton, Juilliard) If so, I'd say they are well worth $120,000, probably have a giant body of work in another field, and are motivated to make back their investment in a mountain of education that…
You might be having a bit of grass is greener syndrome. I graduated in 2012, so a bit after that 8 year ago mark, but after over a year of the traditional "apply and interview with big tech companies all over the country" and nobody wanting to take on verbatim junior devs (at least not at my skill level at the time) I just pivoted into free software for two years and consulting for small businesses the last three. Th…
Yes,perhaps it depends a lot who and where and the year it started to turn. Around 8 years ago, NYC was more open. The free and easy "hey, apply in whatever language you know, we will pay you while you learn ours", etc...this whole notion of "language agnostic" that applies to truly accomplished coders but not juniors. Not really open, just a lot more than it is now. 10 years ago, it was easy to get a junior dev job with basic coding skills. I graduated "several" years before you, friend, so I'll keep that actual number vague ;) I just think it is important that we notice what's happening and notice that they/we can't afford to work for free/very little for may years-- eventually, one can't afford to front anymore, and the bills are coming due, at least here in NYC. We are seeing it in salary demands, lowered enrollment in dev programs, new additions to the severely impoverished (PHD grads who live in their car and take interviews from there). It is important to be truthful about the economy and the state of tech within it and supportive of those who are going through this, and to understand what they are now up against. Because of course mainstream media and similar would have us believe that there really is a giant "skills gap"in tech. I don't think anyone can claim that so vaguely any longer. When "they" suffer, it just means "we" will suffer soon enough.
I've seen horrible things happening to production code due to junior developers. In the end the senior/lead needs to spend way more time fixing all bad code/ideas than if he'd write it himself in the first place. I know a company that has a medior dev that is now already more than 2 months working on a feature I can write in just 2 weeks. Besides that, my code will likely still be better because I code with experience, using proven strategies, making it more scalable, preventing pitfalls, potential bugs, etc..
I don't think the companies are to blame. A junior dev should not write rubbish if he/she is a software developer graduate. Current IT education is very limited. Most of the things you learn in 5 years can be interesting and a good foundation, but not really relevant for most developer jobs out there. You actually have to start learning to code once done with your study. And learning to code is not a short journey, I guess at least some 3 years of full time study before you'll get the hang of it. And I didn't even touch the idea that you definitely need some talent or feel for it. You can study arts, but that alone won't make you an artist.