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Not hiring junior engineers won't solve the problem you think you have

franciscotrindade.me

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Re: Not hiring junior engineers won't solve the problem you think you have

#111

Post by ochronus »

zug_zug wrote: post #84
lbriner wrote: post #14

I'm not sure I understand the logic that we wouldn't hire Juniors because now we have AI. What jobs are Juniors doing that AI can now do? I don't get juniors to build me entire web sites or implement complicated agentic pieces of work. Most of the time, we hire Juniors to help fill the talent pool with the hope that they will be productive in a few months. If we think that we don't need to refill the pool now because…

Well, maybe you've been blessed with a better pool of juniors than the ones I've worked with. The ones I've worked with require exactly what an AI would require -- completely defined tickets with no ambiguity, lots of deliberate review, no guarantees that what they produce is bug-free. At least with AI if it's not working out you just shut it off and it's done. If it's a person's livelihood that process takes a huge…

If you do your hiring (and then mentorship) right, even such juniors can skyrocket in 1-2 years. AI won't do that. So, in case of willing juniors, you get much, much more "out of them" soon, if you invest a little. They will be able to tackle problems you can't solve by "throwing more AI at it"

Re: Not hiring junior engineers won't solve the problem you think you have

#112

Post by ochronus »

mikeocool wrote: post #47

Pre-AI juniors were valuable because on many tasks, it was faster for me (senior eng) to write a quick spec have a conversation with a junior, and have them go off for a few hours or a few days and write the code, and then come back with it for review. I could do that with several junior engineers and pretty reasonably paralellize the work. Now a junior takes my spec, drops it into Claude, and submits a PR a few minu…

Wherever I worked (and as long as it was up to me), the mindset and expectation was that a junior we hire will need to become a medior in max 2 years. Of course, we provided the right investment (environment, mentorship, coaching, learning budget). This also acted as a filter at hiring. This way the question was never "for today's tasks do we need a senior OR a junior".

About AI: Unless there's another breakthrough, AI is not getting significantly better. A junior with 2 years of proper training easily surpasses AI in judgment and arch design skills, etc. - and you will need seasoned engineers to make the calls and shepherd AI even. Where will those people come from if nobody is investing in juniors?

Re: Not hiring junior engineers won't solve the problem you think you have

#113

Post by ochronus »

a2ff6eeb0 wrote: post #62
sumanthvepa wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well. I own my business and I really hate this attitude that some startups executives have. I want quality. Not blind speed. I want speed to be a by product of a well built product and a system that builds it. Not a bunch of slop thrown over the wall that I have to then debug and fix.

The AI is pretty good at debugging and fixing it. It's quite a bit better at it than writing the code, to be honest. And, you're right, I used to enjoy my job a lot more before AI. But in the end, the paychecks keep coming, and I can produce a lot of acceptable code quickly with little skill. Skill in coding no longer makes economic sense.

Yup, if you know what to point it at - where does _that_ skill come from? Experience.

Re: Not hiring junior engineers won't solve the problem you think you have

#114

Post by wizzwizz4 »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #110
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you're trying to upset (former) bullying victims, while having the people you're trying to criticise dismiss you as a mere bully? I don't see how this is an effective strategy. > “That movie was so developmentally disabled”. Nobody says this , and it's been 14 years since this article was published. The euphemism treadmill continues up until people stop treating the attribute as slur-worthy – which was the primar…

Update: no part of this stuck with me after all, not even the part I found annoying.

It is interesting to be reminded of this every time I open the thread. By this point, I remember my original comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49183711) and s-daveb's comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49185803), but that's about it. Maybe repetition will make this supposedly-catchy slogan sink in? (I'm actually kinda invested, now.)

Re: Not hiring junior engineers won't solve the problem you think you have

#115

Post by throwaway2037 »

suzzer99 wrote: post #106
throwaway2037 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is standard because after a year of experience, a fresh junior dev is worth roughly twice as much on the open market. My internal Brandolini's Law alarm is ringing loud and clear on this one. Absolutely not. This is only true for the best junior devs in the most competitive markets. From my professional experience, it is very difficult to keep star junior devs. The "gravity" pulling them away is simply too str…

Doesn't that support my argument? They leave because they can make more money elsewhere.

My objection was to this phrase: "roughly twice". No way.

Re: Not hiring junior engineers won't solve the problem you think you have

#116

Post by suzzer99 »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #115
suzzer99 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't that support my argument? They leave because they can make more money elsewhere.

My objection was to this phrase: "roughly twice". No way.

We had a guy making $60k leave for a job making $110k. This is in LA. So it was close!

Re: Not hiring junior engineers won't solve the problem you think you have

#117

Post by wizzwizz4 »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #114
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Update: no part of this stuck with me after all, not even the part I found annoying.

It is interesting to be reminded of this every time I open the thread. By this point, I remember my original comment ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49183711 ) and s-daveb's comment ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49185803 ), but that's about it. Maybe repetition will make this supposedly-catchy slogan sink in? (I'm actually kinda invested, now.)

I have finally remembered which slur has been used! Not the slogan, though, even though I do remember that it's uncreative, so there are only three or four possibilities. It still doesn't come to mind in any context other than me re-reading this thread, though, so I'm going to have to call this a failure.
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