Who Killed the Junior Developer? • Hacker News Board

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#741

Post by spicytunacone » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 3:02 AM UTC

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 would you filter for a "technically curious" candidate at the junior level (I'm assuming someone who, for example, pursues a Master's or beyond demonstrates this to a degree)?

It certainly doesn't help that an overwhelming amount of junior postings are more interested in the candidate being experienced with the particular stack, so, unless your interests happen to align with what's industrially pragmatic, I imagine the kid who stays overnight in the lab doing something in Haskell or some other "obscure but requires a non-trivial amount of autodidacticism" activity wouldn't be very happy about those valuable nights in their youth bearing them no fruit.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#742

Post by jpindar » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 3:15 AM UTC

consp wrote: post #343

zemanel wrote: post #302

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…

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…

>I'm pretty sure you cannot legally force someone to use their own stuff without compensation.

That's the norm in some professions. Welders and mechanics often have their own tools, which can cost a lot more than a laptop.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#743

Post by samcodes » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 3:25 AM UTC

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #725

oldandtired wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labels like rockstar, guru and ninja are labels we don't need. We need competent generalists and competent specialists who can work in teams as well as work alone and can communicate with those who are part of the team or part of the management and user bases. When a person takes on for themselves labels like rockstar, guru, ninja, etc. I don't doubt that they can write code, but I certainly doubt that they can write…

We don't need titles like that at all. Let's change rockstar to MVP Developer, Ninja to Builder, Guru to Experienced Builder, and the 3rd type of developer described in GP to Maintenance Developer. I think the industry could go a long way if it admits that it needs all 4 of these types of developers, so that expectations were transparent for employees and needs are transparent for developers.

There are those who get it done RIGHT, and those who get it done RIGHT NOW.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#744

Post by ranci » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 4:05 AM UTC

g051051 wrote: post #729

ranci wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your cost is less by being paid more? Seems legit

My cost is less by doing more in the same amount of time.

Which is offset by the fact that you're paid significantly more

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#745

Post by bmurphy1976 » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 4:23 AM UTC

ranci wrote: post #714

g051051 wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't view the value I add as "can code features faster" I do, at least partly. I can code so much faster that my cost per feature is lower than a junior dev.

Your cost is less by being paid more? Seems legit

His projects are most likely successful and profitable. The junior devs is probably a comparative catastrophe. I honestly don't get where this junior devs are faster meme is coming from, it sure doesn't represent my experience.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#746

Post by tbrownaw » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 5:04 AM UTC

pan69 wrote: post #57

My personal experience with this is that the ratio matters A LOT. I.e. having juniors out number the seniors is bad. When you have a team that mostly consist of junior and mid-level developers, then they will clique together and they will mostly likely "behave" like juniors. Typical junior behaviour is e.g. to rather than digging into the backlog for the next thing to work on when you're done with one thing, to just…

I remember being a junior. I'd either go looking for more to do, or take a bit of extra time to experiment with different ways to do whatever I was given.

Maybe this is more a personality thing, and it's just that people who don't think a certain way don't really make it to senior?

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#747

Post by virgilp » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 5:14 AM UTC

g051051 wrote: post #704

virgilp wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look. Aren't you spending time thinking? Do you imagine you think faster than everybody aged 23? Could you do an MSc at a top-level US university (in your primary domain of expertise) in a week? Because plenty of people (juniors by definition, almost all of them) can do it in 2 years, so if you're "100x" in the sense that you say you are, you should be able to do all that work in 1 week. At least that much should be…

> Aren't you spending time thinking? Do you imagine you think faster than everybody aged 23? No, but I probably think better ...i.e. how to approach a problem, sift out the relevant details, formulate a plan, execute it, understand the trade-offs, etc. As a result, I can deliver more correct code faster than a junior dev. > you can't possibly be "100x" in the sense that you claim to be. I never claimed to be 100x. I…

> I never claimed to be 100x.

You actually did - look 2 posts up, "i.e. I'm a 10x (100x) dev". But I suspect you didn't actually read that link, just the URL - not fair to chide me for mentioning the number if you didn't read what that meant.

> how to approach a problem, sift out the relevant details, formulate a plan, understand the trade-offs

That's exactly my claim, that you add more value with this sort of activity than the "execute it" part; doing that plus teaching others to do it, you add exponentially more value to the company, than just coding stuff in a corner .

You cling on the fact that a junior dev can't possibly code faster than you - even though it's a completely irrelevant detail. And yes they can, if you remove qualifications like "correct code" or "maintainable" or whatever (I never claimed junior devs will do the right thing all by themselves, that'd make them seniors, right? But - I participated in coding competitions in high-school, got a silver medal at IOI - I know very well that my younger self could code circles around my older self when it comes to raw speed. And I've seen other people like that later; experience can't fight youth when it comes to speed and enthusiasm... it just can't. It's more likely that you just never worked with a good junior dev before, than it is that you can always code everything faster).

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#748

Post by grappler » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 5:16 AM UTC

I've found myself in a "mid-level" limbo. I have lots of knowledge and a fair amount of skill from a lifetime of programming, but I have trouble keeping what feels like an insane pace some others around me seem to manage. I was flat-out told that my output isn't what they expect from a "senior" developer.

Thing is, I never claimed that I was a "senior" developer, whatever that means. I just seem to have been slotted into that category based on years of experience. I didn't want to mislead an employer into thinking I was more capable than I actually was.

I went job searching and specifically said to recruiters and hiring managers that I was "mid-level" and would set my salary requests accordingly. If that meant I'm held to expectations somewhere between junior and senior, and get paid somewhere between junior and senior, that would be just fine.

I found that pretty much everyone was looking for senior devs, a few places advertised junior openings, and interest in mid-level seemed rarest of all.

It's like they think everyone is either a junior who needs to be mentored, or a senior who can deliver a story every day or two. I feel perfectly capable of doing the work, but need some time to think my way through it. I don't quite understand why I'm finding that to be such a hard sell in a job market where it's supposedly so hard to find developers.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#749

Post by xigency » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 5:16 AM UTC

g051051 wrote: post #728

xigency wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about cross-discipline? What if a problem comes up that would be better solved with technology Y instead of X and you are an X master but random intern happens to know Y. Are you still the fastest? What if the intern is better at making slides for code reviews that show important trends? Or they can write fantastic documentation? Or tools? I'm sure you're a quick learner but at least in scenarios I've worked in…

None of that has anything to do with the original blanket assertion of "good junior devs can code not only "just as fast", but probably faster too!".

Aye, but you probably can't code faster if you have to read a manual first? It is easy to construct scenarios where someone from a bootcamp could code "faster" than a principal, senior lead, or CTO of all things. It's just a matter of picking the problem.

A better point is that this drought of new talent is just the other side of the pendulum. In the odd years, the problem is layoffs and difficulty finding work without being a new-grad or knowing the latest tech fad. You've seen some of those summers, too?

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#750

Post by hailk » Thu, Feb 15, 2018, 5:26 AM UTC

bovermyer wrote: post #730

CryoLogic wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is still descrimination. "Discrimination: the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually" - Merriam Webster Dictionary Please don't bend what the word means just because others do. If we have our own meanings for every word, than the words mean nothing.

Fair enough. But it's discrimination with a higher purpose.

I'd like to share a perspective based on an anecdote. The first company that I'd worked for had come to our college to hire interns. They wanted 2. I'd find out later that the CEO had intended one male hire and one female hire, but they ended up hiring 3 (all men) including me. Two of us that got hired were from financially poor background, had lived in tier 3 cities, went to underfunded-corrupt schools with bad educators (as was common in the region we were from), had taken out huge education loans and were possibly the only source of retirement income for our parents (I'm based out of India, poor people have to rely on their children's success here). There were around 10-15 women in our batch. Most were from well off families, had well-educated parents who were also bankrolling their daughters' education, were from tier-1 cities and were exposed to tech long before us. They'd had better opportunities for growth even before joining college and only equal opportunities after, like the rest of us. In retrospect I feel that I had been lucky in a certain sense. Thankfully the recruiters weren't people with the >`But it's discrimination with a higher purpose.` mindset. It would've been a very difficult road to recovery for me otherwise.

I would urge you to reconsider the notion that affirmative action is a sustainable solution for anything. It's hack. You only need to look at the current state of India's government, which over the course of more than 50 years of affirmative action (and other varying factors) has managed to convert the government sector into a cesspool of corruption and bad management.