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The Junior Hiring Crisis

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Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#141

Post by [deleted] »

Herring wrote: post #75
Octoth0rpe wrote: post #56

> The social contract between large companies and employees has been broken for years now. US companies are optimized for quarterly earnings, not long term investment in their employees. Going to throw out another anecdote here. At a company that a number of my friends work for (a fortune 50), they are currently making record profits that they loudly brag about during employee townhalls. They also are in the process…

What social contract? Companies have always been for shareholders. Do you people have some kind of contract with Tesla that I don't know about? This entire discussion sounds crazy to me. If you want socialism, vote for socialism. If you want raw unfiltered capitalism, vote for the billionaire. You can't vote for the billionaire and expect safety nets. That's madness.

[deleted]

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#142

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

shinjitsu wrote: post #107
silisili wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It matches mine as well. People will pretend to be your best friend, but when push comes to shove, they will absolutely throw you under the bus. And maybe that's human nature, but I don't have it in me. The people who will give you credit where it's due and lift you in my experience are more rare than not, and almost always an older member, which perhaps is because they don't feel the need to prove themselves as much…

>Despising older folks has been a thing a long time, made famous by Zuck starting out. and before that is was hippies with "Don't trust anyone over 30" which became deeply ingrained in at least American culture.

Yup.

The difference, this time, is the CEO is now a younger person, when they used to always be someone in at least their forties (more often fifties or sixties).

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#143

Post by ah979 »

CSSer wrote: post #126
ah979 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong! I'm the original author of the post, and yes, I've seen this trend for years now, too, but I was using those two research studies that I cited as the basis of the article, so I started looking at it from that lens. I think the problems go deeper than AI, too, which is why I touched on corporate incentives. Ultimately, my goal was just for teams to think about how it could benefit them to invest in j…

We may have some things in common. I'm not a mom, but I am a woman. And I don't want to assume the same is true for you, but breaking into this industry was difficult for me, so even without children, I'm really invested in the ability for juniors to succeed too. I wish I had responded more directly to your article rather than my general ennui. I really admire your willingness to write this. I hope it gets broad enga…

I appreciate the positive feedback. :) And yes, I was a career changer, so it was difficult for me to break into tech, too, so it feels a bit personal for that reason, as well.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#144

Post by [deleted] »

viraptor wrote: post #59
alephnerd wrote: post #31

Sadly - as I've mentioned on HN a bunch - junior salaries need to fall dramatically to somewhere in the $60k-$100k range in order to make it cost effective against automation/AI or offshoring. The economics of providing every new grad a $150k TC offer just doesn't work in a world with the dual pressures of AI and async induced offshoring. Heck, once you factor in YoE, salaries and TCs outside the new grad range have…

> The economics of providing every new grad a $150k TC offer It was always a weird US thing driven by huge companies and VCs. In other western, developed countries ~$50k equivalent would be normal. Even adjusting for other provided social benefits, there's still a long way down...

[deleted]

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#145

Post by Apocryphon »

Herring wrote: post #139
QuercusMax wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Henry Ford for all his faults (and there were MANY) at least understood that you gotta have a customer base for your products, and that paying workers well helps everybody out.

Ok so that's 1 guy 100 years ago. How many golden parachutes and layoffs have there been since then? Cmon people put 2+2 together, it's not that hard.

The behavior you’re describing really got big in the 80s with Jack Welch at GE. Which, admittedly, is nearly half a century ago.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#146

Post by koakuma-chan »

ch4s3 wrote: post #106
koakuma-chan wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just don't have children. All this churn (learning whatever) isn't worth it (for them).

This is a weird take. There are plenty of ways to build a meaningful life that don't involve writing code or slinging emails and powerpoints for a living. The guy I call to do plumbing work has several kids and does fine for himself.

Chances are he smokes or gets drunk or beats his wife or any combination thereof, or other similar activities. This can be said about any person who works as a plumber, construction worker, or similar, their whole life. And I am not blaming them, this appears to be the sad reality and the nature of our society.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#147

Post by QuercusMax »

Apocryphon wrote: post #145
Herring wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok so that's 1 guy 100 years ago. How many golden parachutes and layoffs have there been since then? Cmon people put 2+2 together, it's not that hard.

The behavior you’re describing really got big in the 80s with Jack Welch at GE. Which, admittedly, is nearly half a century ago.

Many of our current society's problems can be directly traced back to Reagan-era policies. Anyone who seriously believes in trickle-down Reaganomics is a fool or a liar.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#148

Post by zcw100 »

QuercusMax wrote: post #104
zcw100 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what world you're living in but software development has always been a cut throat business. I've never seen true mentoring. Maybe a code review where some a-hole of a "senior" developer would come in having just read "clean code" and use some stupid stylistic preferences as a cudgel and go to town on the juniors. I'm cynical enough to believe that this, "AI is going to take your programming job!" is just…

Wow, you must have worked in some REALLY toxic places. I had one toxic senior teammate when I first started out - he mocked me when I was having trouble with some of the dev environment he had created - but he got fired shortly thereafter for being bad at his job. Everybody else through my 21-year career has almost universally either been helpful or neutral (mostly just busy). If you think code reviews are just for b…

Sure have. Finance, research labs, government contracting. Can't wait for people to chime in with their horror stories. I've seen some of the most dysfunctional crap you can imagine.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#149

Post by dataviz1000 »

Ask HN:

I have a friend of a friend in his mid 20s who finished a masters degree in data science focused on AI. There isnt a job for him and I think hes given up.

In Letters to a Young Poet Rilke responded to a young aspiring poet who asked how a person knows whether the artistic path is truly their calling:

> “There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must," then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.”

How do I respond to this friend of a friend? Is data science or coding in general the path for you only if you would rather die than stop merging pull requests into main every day even when nobody is paying you?

Is coding the new poetry?

What do I tell this guy?

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#150

Post by kulahan »

andrewmutz wrote: post #136
hex4def6 wrote: post #14

> We used to have a training ground for junior engineers, but now AI is increasingly automating away that work. Both studies I referenced above cited the same thing - AI is getting good at automating junior work while only augmenting senior work. So the evidence doesn’t show that AI is going to replace everyone; it’s just removing the apprenticeship ladder. Was having a discussion the other day with someone, and we c…

It's not helping that in the last 10 years a culture of job-hopping has taken over the tech industry. Average tenure at tech companies is often ~2 years and after that people job hop to increase compensation. It's clear why people do it (more pay) but it sets up bad incentives for the companies. Why would a company invest money in growing the technical skill set of an employee, just to have them leave as soon as they…

One would assume the solution is to simply offer a good package and retain employees with that. I returned to an old company after a few years of floating around because I realized they had the perfect mix of culture and benefits for me, even if the pay isn't massive.

You're falling for the exact same fallacy experienced by failed salesmen. "Why would I bother investing time in this customer when they're just going to take my offer to another dealership for a better deal?"

Answer: you offer a good deal and work with people honestly, because if you don't, you'll never get a customer.

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