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

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

#191
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economies aren't that simple.

Ok then, can you explain why wages for programming jobs are low-ish in Europe even when there is, apparently, a shortage?

Maybe there is a shortage because wages are low thus people are not programmatically attracted to the field? ;)

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

#192

One of the reasons that I saw, is that training is very expensive for the company (both in terms of money, opportunity cost, time of other people, etc) which combined with people changing jobs often produces low, or negative ROI. By the time person is trained, they leave, before they start to meaningfully contribute. More experienced folks also change jobs often, but you have higher chance of getting some productive…

It doesn't have to be expensive, either in financial terms, opportunity cost or other people's time. That's exactly the problem we've solved with Skiller Whale - we make good training easy.

http://skillerwhale.com

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

#193
Training isn't dead at all, most companies have co-op/internship programs for exactly this purpose. This greatly reduces the need for hiring junior employees since you already know if they are a good employee, and they are already trained enough to dump them right into a project without all the training for the tools/processes/product that goes on for any hire.

In my experience this means that the vast majority of hiring through standard postings my companies have done are for mid to senior level positions to keep a good variety of experience in the team. For the hiring I've been involved with, it often comes down less to whether the person ticks off all the boxes, but rather whether they can actually do everything that comes with the job. If you are getting rejections for missing one or two things, I'd recommend evaluating how you are coming off in your resume and interview and make sure you are emphasizing that you are able to learn quickly on the job.

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

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other replies touch on this, but I'm gonna get straight to the point: Does your friend give them actual, meaningful raises as they grow? Is he actually paying competitively to begin with? Because I think if you have this pattern that consistently, it's really likely that either you're underpaying to begin with or your raises suck or are not even present. I love working at small companies. It's by far my preferenc…

One could argue that their "raises" were paid in training

[deleted]

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

#195

First of all the shortage of devs is mostly a myth. Companies that know how to hire don't have problems hiring. the problem is most software companies don't know how to hire and thus have a lot of problems. Or they're located in some impossible location like palo alto or San francisco and try to low ball everyone with salaries under 200K in a location where housing costs 3million$ plus. About hiring junior devs. You…

Is there any sort of training on how to go about hiring people? Other than experience of course.

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

#196

I think the reason is simple: once the junior dev is trained, they will leave. To be clear, I am not saying that they are obliged to stay in the company that trained them or being ungrateful in any sense, I am simply implying this is a common outcome from such training. In software industry, the first job switch in 2 years seems pretty common and reasonable, and the dev by that time would be able to strike a better j…

Maybe that wouldn't happen if companies would raised their employees pays... If the only way to get some substancial raise is to change job, what else could you do?

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

#197
Most of the time because companies are hiring out of necessity. They either need to deliver more, faster, or are lacking technical leadership / expertise. This means the team is under enough pressure to deliver as is and don't have resources or incentive to onboard a junior.

My advice is to keep learning on your own time, push yourself to learn a valuable skillset e.g. React (as you say you do frontend) and make something with it. For a new hire getting familiar with a project is a given, even a senior needs time to do this. However knowing a language, framework, or skill is your responsibility before applying for a job.

I've applied for jobs that were above my experience level but ended up getting hired anyway while I didn't have enough "years" under my belt I knew the domain and tech stack required for the job. This often meant when applying for a senior job I'd get signed as an intermediate and same with intermediate roles where I was hired as a junior. Once your foot is in the door, if you work hard it will be apparent that you're adding the value of more experienced member than your current job title and from there its an easy promotion discussion.

Just my 2cents. Know your stuff, that's your job and stay humble the promotions and opportunities will come.

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

#198

I think the reason is simple: once the junior dev is trained, they will leave. To be clear, I am not saying that they are obliged to stay in the company that trained them or being ungrateful in any sense, I am simply implying this is a common outcome from such training. In software industry, the first job switch in 2 years seems pretty common and reasonable, and the dev by that time would be able to strike a better j…

A friend of mine runs a web dev shop and I have seen him train at least six people from zero-to-pro (very smart, fast learners with a math background) and what you described is exactly what happens. Once they become medium/advanced-level proficient they often quit and move on to other, bigger companies. If there was some formal, or informal understanding that candidates "trained on the job" would stay for a few years…

I have seen it work. I think that the key is in transition, company must change how it treats them as they progress. It is not just about salary and may not even primary salary.

They need (not just want, but need) progressively more and more autonomy, bigger and bigger tasks, more and more responsibility. It also helps when the company culture/management is such that they can talk openly about their preferences and dislikes. It does not mean they should get everything they want, but there should be no "punishment" for saying what they want.

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

#199

I think the reason is simple: once the junior dev is trained, they will leave. To be clear, I am not saying that they are obliged to stay in the company that trained them or being ungrateful in any sense, I am simply implying this is a common outcome from such training. In software industry, the first job switch in 2 years seems pretty common and reasonable, and the dev by that time would be able to strike a better j…

There is a schema that I've seen used in Nestle which is quite bad TBH: they offer a course that you have to pass for a position this guy was trying to get to. This training course was fairly long (4 years) and expensive for an individual, however the company would pay for it. BUT only on the condition the student/employee would finish it and stay in the company for at least 1 more year.

Now I hear you, they cannot force you to stay in a company (slavery laws and such). Well, the way it was structured legally is that Nestle was loaning money to the individual for Nestle's course. Then the debt would disappear as long as you stay the right amount of time. Oh, and also it was mandatory to take the course for the role this guy was trying to transfer to.

Of course, the employee would study on the side while working the normal fulltime job and even get complains for missing 2 days for the tests.

If I recall correctly (but don't trust this paragraph so much), the training was internal but it was preparing for 2 external tests (once every 2 years).

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

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Embed salary upgrades within the employment contract. We already know jumping gives on average a 15% salary increase every two years, so you just have to beat or match that. Now people might still leave for more interesting projects, but you get one of the larger motivational factors out of the way. People often leave because negotiating a salary upgrade is way harder than navigating an interview. So, unless your hid…

The problem from zero to hero is more than that. Entry-level college graduate non-developer positions might net 50-60k even in the Bay Area. So if you hire a 22 year old with a degree at that base and then teach them how to be a react pro over the course of two years they will then be eligible for 100k+ salaries. That's a 200%+ increase that is very difficult for even modern businesses to take sitting down. If Starbu…

>>That's a 200%+ increase that is very difficult for even modern businesses to take sitting down.

Because businesses would rather have a person leave and then hire someone at 1.5x or 2x their salary than just pay the first person 2x what they were making the year before.

This happens all the time. Employers want to have 2x people at 1x prices, and that doesn't work for long.

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