Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#11

Post by jowiar » Thu, Nov 22, 2018, 3:22 AM UTC

torte wrote: post #9

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I would expect that each newly hired developer (be it junior, mid-level, senior) can and will take time to do train and improve him/herself. I don't mind this being on job time, as long it is not all day. Most times this is even required when doing a task, because no one knows everything, even with X+ years of experience. If this mindset is not there and a newly hired developer…

I 100% agree with you. Over the course of my career, I've taken plenty of time, on the clock, to do such. Not necessarily with any particular direction of my managers, but just understanding that "My job is to solve problem X. Doing so requires learning tool Y, therefore, I'll spend a day of learning and an hour of coding".

Having talked to others, though, I find that a lot of folks don't necessarily realize that this is acceptable/encouraged. As I moved into senior roles, I tried to do a better job of conveying this. And overall, employers and managers need to do a better job communicating that doing this is expected/reasonable behavior.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#12

Post by rubicon33 » Thu, Nov 22, 2018, 3:29 AM UTC

False premise.

There is no shortage of devs. That has been a complete fabrication, made up entirely by big tech companies, in a propaganda push to promote more and more people getting into CS.

It's entirely so they can pay developers less.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#13

Post by barry-cotter » Thu, Nov 22, 2018, 3:32 AM UTC

Avshalom wrote: post #7

Basically in 1981 Reagan fired 11000 striking air traffic controllers which broke the backs of American unions, permanently establishing corporations' privilege over humans. Ever since companies have been insisting that workers spend more and more so that they can be slotted into ever more specific niches without the company risking anything.

http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/on-this-day/July-August-...

> At 7:00 a.m. on Aug. 3, 13,000 PATCO members went on a strike in violation of a law barring federal employees from striking against the government.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#14

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 22, 2018, 3:33 AM UTC

sys_64738 wrote: post #8

> I ask this because I'm 4-years-experienced as a front-end UI/interaction dev, nothing but glowing references, looking for another, similar, position (regular, not senior or lead) It depends on what country you're in. This USA has an obsession with calling anybody with more than 2-3 years experience a 'senior' developer. In Europe senior is more like 7-8 years.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#15

Post by fzeroracer » Thu, Nov 22, 2018, 3:34 AM UTC

I figured I'd add my two cents since I'm still a juniorish developer (sitting at around 2.5 years of experience) and I definitely noticed during my my more recent job search that there was a dearth of Junior job postings. I'm of the opinion that there are two major issues in play:

1. There's the myth of the junior developer breaking prod or wiping databases. This is usually the result of teams not having enough process or protections in play. These are only exposed when a newbie developer does something silly because senior developers have learned how to navigate the system.

2. There's the myth of the junior developer not adding value until they're fully trained. Personally I have never had an issue ramping up, but from what I've seen across my network and search is that there's a fear of developers leaving once they gain enough knowledge. And, well, that usually happens because junior developers can be heavily underpaid without any promotion opportunities which makes job hopping the best way to increase your salary.

So I would say right now there's an overabundance of mid-level positions that could be filled by junior developers but due to irrational fears results in them just foisting the work upon smaller teams. I definitely noticed that the moment I hit two years of experience that the search became a lot easier

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#16

Post by brentonator » Thu, Nov 22, 2018, 3:39 AM UTC

sys_64738 wrote: post #8

> I ask this because I'm 4-years-experienced as a front-end UI/interaction dev, nothing but glowing references, looking for another, similar, position (regular, not senior or lead) It depends on what country you're in. This USA has an obsession with calling anybody with more than 2-3 years experience a 'senior' developer. In Europe senior is more like 7-8 years.

I don't think seniority has to do with a number of years of experience but the quality of that experience. You could sit at a company for 8 years and not advance your capability, experience, and worthiness.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#17

Post by 9wzYQbTYsAIc » Thu, Nov 22, 2018, 3:41 AM UTC

xupybd wrote: post #6

zunzun wrote: post #2

At the businesses where I worked, developers were hired to be productive in taking on workload. Obviously, new people had to be brought up to speed on the existing systems before they could fix problems or add features. If we first had to give them technical training for months before they could be trained to understand the existing systems, that would have taken too much time. Even the front-end user and B2B interfa…

I don't really understand this? It's trivial to learn a new UI framework, why limit yourself to only the devs that know the one you've selected? I guess if you have a lot to choose from why not.

Companies are under the crunch to be productive. Generally, unprepared people are not as productive as prepared people.

Being prepared to learn to produce value is not the same as being prepared to produce value.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#18

Post by amb23 » Thu, Nov 22, 2018, 3:41 AM UTC

Non-developer here but I might have some insight on general hiring practices: First of all, most companies, startups especially, are really bad at training. Like, really really bad. A majority don’t have any kind of formal training programs until they hit 100+ employees, and even then the training you get is usually created by HR and lacks any kind of technical depth. It’s hard enough to even wrap your head around the basics of how most tech companies are built as an early employee; trying to turn that complexity into a simple training program for new hires is hard and people rarely have the time or resources to do it well.

That being said, if a company is preparing for growth they need to plan and document for those trainings ahead of time, and they’re probably better off hiring fast and teaching quickly on the job. Not documenting how your company works is another kind of technical debt if you think about it, and a lot of startups scramble to make up for it when they find they need to hire quickly but those hires aren’t getting up to speed as quickly as they should be. So they overreact and think it’s the quality of the developers that’s the problem when it’s really their own lackluster training resources causing the issue. Also, the company I’m at just constantly maintains listings for front end and back end engineers and data science just to try and keep a constant pipeline coming, but the actual needs and experience levels they’re looking for at any one time on those teams do change. IMO you should never apply to a job post that’s been up for 1+ month; always target newly published listings and you’ll up the chances a recruiter reaches out. The rest is just HR noise.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#19

Post by closeparen » Thu, Nov 22, 2018, 3:41 AM UTC

Avshalom wrote: post #7

Basically in 1981 Reagan fired 11000 striking air traffic controllers which broke the backs of American unions, permanently establishing corporations' privilege over humans. Ever since companies have been insisting that workers spend more and more so that they can be slotted into ever more specific niches without the company risking anything.

Unions typically protect existing workers by constraining the supply of new ones. At the very least, holding wages high constrains the number of workers a firm can afford. Unions are great as an employee, but I would not be pining for them as a job seeker, particularly a junior job seeker (seniority rules are notorious).

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#20

Post by harlanji » Thu, Nov 22, 2018, 3:42 AM UTC

In VC land at least I think there is a preference for cumbersome employment agreements to capture intellectual property and head off potential competition, even if unenforcable by law (simple psychological / fear). Legally programmers are universally hired as “exempt” salaried “employee” (vs. worker).

Junior devs should be hired on as exempt hourly workers. This would replace the worse than random interview process and do lots of wonderful things.

It cuts lawyers and HR out to a large degree so I have a hard time seeing it catch on, but in the longer term smart contracts and other lawyer labor saving packages could bring it in.