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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?

#441

Post by ryanmarsh »

sgift wrote: post #409
ryanmarsh wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to more or less fight them off over every position we hired for, because they didn't understand anything about coding, IT or creativity, and would just look for relevant experience in a similar field. I’m a dev coach, which means I can run circles around my client’s developers (except usually one or two). However if I ever wanted to get hired as an actual employee at any of my clients I couldn’t. I’m a high sch…

HR is the "no one ever gets fired for buying IBM" of hiring. Not really good, but minimizes risks for all involved.

Minimizes the risk of hiring great people.

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

#442

Post by nradov »

coder543 wrote: post #220
nradov wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market economies are that simple, but the market doesn't stop at the borders of any single European country. Personally I'm happy being an employee for now and have no desire to move or start a company. But if you're asking a bank to finance hiring more developers then you're really barking up the wrong tree. You need to find investors with a different risk profile.

As it turns out, those investors are generally in the successful areas, though... so, they're not around to ask. I mean, am I wrong? You're right that banks aren't going to be excited about that, but if you have no local billionaires looking to take a risk, what are you supposed to do? Move to an area with lots of investors? That just reinforces the cycle of low wages in the area you moved from, it doesn't break it.

Lack of mature capital markets is a legitimate problem in some countries. But that's completely separate from any labor shortage.

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

#443

Post by smoe »

ivansavz wrote: post #118
oh-kumudo wrote: post #103

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…

Here's how apprenticeships work in Switzerland:

Before leaving school you try to find a company that is willing to take you on as an apprentice for a four year contract.

Time is roughly split 50/50 at work in the company and specialized schools. The companies will cover the cost for the school, and pay a small amount to the trainee (~550$ first year to ~1400$ in the fourth year)

On average companies lose money in the first 2 years, but make it up in the last two for an overall win. Especially for programming apprenticeships, this can be quite lucrative for the companies.

So even if they leave immediately after the four years, it is not really bad for the company.

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

#444

Post by jbob2000 »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #433
_1qd4 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call this method of team building the "island of mistfit toys", it is something I practice on my team since I was a misfit toy myself. I disagree that training juniors keeps them loyal. When you bring someone the island of misfit toys and they get some experience and success, they no longer see themselves as a misfit toy. But when they come in to the office in the morning, they look all around them and see misfit t…

I didn't have that experience. Possibly because I didn't see this great team as being made up of "misfit toys", which is a bit denigrating to be honest. My team was mostly made up of awesome people who were being overlooked by completely shit recruitment processes.

That’s the story of the island of misfit toys though; They were still fun toys to play with, but they didn’t fit the mould, and so didn’t get sold.

I don’t find it denigrating, but I also was a bit of a punk in high school, so it’s a label I’m comfortable with.

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

#445

Post by ascar »

smoe wrote: post #443
ivansavz wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Here's how apprenticeships work in Switzerland: Before leaving school you try to find a company that is willing to take you on as an apprentice for a four year contract. Time is roughly split 50/50 at work in the company and specialized schools. The companies will cover the cost for the school, and pay a small amount to the trainee (~550$ first year to ~1400$ in the fourth year) On average companies lose money in the…

Same in Germany, but programming apprentice and computer science major is a completely different thing, afaik also in Switzerland. No one coming from 3-5 years of unpaid (and depending on country expensive) university is up for this kind of payment and training.

Though the majority of devs would be better of with a programming apprenticeship instead of an university degree in the first place. Only a fraction of devs work on these hard technical problems or complicated architectures that are actually engineering and not just programming.

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

#446

Post by jjuhl »

gscott wrote: post #261

4 years experience probably makes you more of a mid to senior developer. Why even bother applying to positions below your level. That is probably why you cannot get one.

I don't know where you work, but where I'm at, less than 6years of solid experience would be considered junior, no where near seniour - that's 10-15 years of relevant experience.

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

#447

Post by ascar »

Bombthecat wrote: post #366
ivansavz wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Can't you make a binding / contract? My company did that with me. Basically forbidding me to quit for 12 months. Ways you can do it in germany: hire. After 2 or 3 months to see if he is a good fit. Give him a bonus to stay. The contract allows you for up to two years without issues, maybe three. If he quits earlier. He must pay back the bonus back (Valles Heilung des bonus in german, healing 9f bonus) after a few mon…

What is "Valles Heilung des bonus"? I'm German, I have never heard that and it brings up nothing in google.

But yes these types of bonuses are common, especially as stock options with vesting. More so outside of Germany as far as I'm aware.

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

#448

Post by ascar »

Merad wrote: post #382
Bombthecat wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you make a binding / contract? My company did that with me. Basically forbidding me to quit for 12 months. Ways you can do it in germany: hire. After 2 or 3 months to see if he is a good fit. Give him a bonus to stay. The contract allows you for up to two years without issues, maybe three. If he quits earlier. He must pay back the bonus back (Valles Heilung des bonus in german, healing 9f bonus) after a few mon…

Roughly 2/3s of the states in the US have “right to work” laws, which basically means that either employer or employee can terminate the job at any time for basically any reason.

That's not what he is talking about. You can also always quit your job in Germany.

He is talking about payments that are conditional upon you staying at the company for a certain amount of time. Relocation bonuses and stock option vesting are a very common type. If the bonus is high enough, it makes it very unattractive to quit. He is exaggerating though.

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

#449

Post by ascar »

ManlyBread wrote: post #389
Bombthecat wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you make a binding / contract? My company did that with me. Basically forbidding me to quit for 12 months. Ways you can do it in germany: hire. After 2 or 3 months to see if he is a good fit. Give him a bonus to stay. The contract allows you for up to two years without issues, maybe three. If he quits earlier. He must pay back the bonus back (Valles Heilung des bonus in german, healing 9f bonus) after a few mon…

Why would anyone want to sign this kind of a contract when most companies don't play these games? Even as a junior I wouldn't see this as an opportunity, I would wonder what is wrong with the company.

The company offers you 10k bonus with the condition that you stay at least one more year. Otherwise you have to pay it back.

If you intend to stay anyway or are not so keen on leaving, why should you say no?

It's similar to stock option vesting and that is very common.

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

#450

Post by rightbyte »

wyclif wrote: post #77
justapassenger wrote: post #58

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…

Oftentimes if the company is a USA startup, none of the experienced engineers have time to train or even mentor junior devs. A lot of startups want people who are "10x programmers" (however ridiculous that notion might be) or maybe it's less sarcastic to describe them as new hires that don't need any guidance or input, and will achieve maximum productivity after a short time adjusting to the new environment/toolset/w…

"Not having the time" to introduce new engineers to the problem at hand, task, system or what ever is a recipe for wasting even more time in the future. It's very short sighted. Neither "10x programmers" or mere mortals can grasp a code base by reading it alone as by a thorough introduction.

I mean, a mediocre engineer that knows the system well is way more useful than an excellent engineers that just got his hands on it, for like half a year or more depending on complexity. If you give guidance you don't need excellent engineers. At least not as many. It's kinda surprising the way companies think of this.

Rather than officially allocating a developers time for introducing new employees or writing documentation for the system, Company 101 is to put 10 or 100 times the amount of dev time into catching up for the devs replacement when he quits, after he quits.

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