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BYOT: Bring your own team for new-grads

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Re: BYOT: Bring your own team for new-grads

#21

Post by dmitriid_y »

gregdoesit wrote: post #2

As a former hiring manager, I am a little puzzled what the deal is for employers . New grad positions are usually the easiest to fill, by far - much easier than any software engineering position where you’re hiring for some former experience. Also, new grads are almost always put on a team with more experienced engineers - one new grad at a time. This is so they get mentorship, onboarding and taking team dynamics int…

From experience, this is not dissimilar to the internship-to-hire programs large firms like Qualcomm have used. At anywhere even 10% of that company's size, any individual can easily feel lost in a tidal wave -- triply so if your firm is facing any significant mountain of work prohibiting a good onboarding. Some employers may think this is even advantageous for them, but it can burnout the new hires fast.

The difference with this is the new cohort would have better cohesion from the get-go and might stand a greater chance of dealing with cultural fusion, imposter syndrome, "am I paid appropriately" syndrome, "why shouldn't I advocate a union" syndrome, etc

Re: BYOT: Bring your own team for new-grads

#22

Post by rgbrgb »

gregdoesit wrote: post #2

As a former hiring manager, I am a little puzzled what the deal is for employers . New grad positions are usually the easiest to fill, by far - much easier than any software engineering position where you’re hiring for some former experience. Also, new grads are almost always put on a team with more experienced engineers - one new grad at a time. This is so they get mentorship, onboarding and taking team dynamics int…

They might be a good team. A team of undergrads built Facebook.

Agree it could be a hard sell internally but if they had a track record of building great apps, I could see hiring them to build another one.

That said, if a team is that strong they should probably start their own company.

Re: BYOT: Bring your own team for new-grads

#23

Post by dmitriid_y »

zomglings wrote: post #9

To any team of students considering applying for this, please let me suggest an alternative: Don't waste your time working for the kind of company that would choose to hire through such a program. Instead, build something together that you think would make a positive difference in the world. Don't squander your lives selling advertisements or developing weapons or "increasing the efficiency of the markets". Don't sel…

> Don't waste your time working for the kind of company that would choose to hire through such a program.

Why are you so confident you know the labor market? Why are the companies that might considering hiring this inherently be exploiting the team?

I'd like to think a handful of people would be able to spot a griftshop better than an individual and this reads to me like a variant of collective bargaining.

> Instead, build something together that you think would make a positive difference in the world.

The types of new grads who have the social connections to meaningfully act on bright ideas...shouldn't.

Re: BYOT: Bring your own team for new-grads

#24

Post by dmitriid_y »

georgeoliver wrote: post #16

This makes me wonder, does an average software engineer (salary 125k+) have less workplace political power than an average union construction laborer (40k+)?

Yes, because organizing software engineers is like herding cats. A former workplace literally had us form a "guild" with standing meetings, and we still couldn't meaningfully coordinate on a thing.

Re: BYOT: Bring your own team for new-grads

#25

Post by watwut »

rgbrgb wrote: post #22
gregdoesit wrote: post #2

As a former hiring manager, I am a little puzzled what the deal is for employers . New grad positions are usually the easiest to fill, by far - much easier than any software engineering position where you’re hiring for some former experience. Also, new grads are almost always put on a team with more experienced engineers - one new grad at a time. This is so they get mentorship, onboarding and taking team dynamics int…

They might be a good team. A team of undergrads built Facebook. Agree it could be a hard sell internally but if they had a track record of building great apps, I could see hiring them to build another one. That said, if a team is that strong they should probably start their own company.

> but if they had a track record of building great apps

In that case, we should not primary refer to them as to "new-grads". The primary thing about them is that they already successfully build multiple apps. They should be referred to as "existing team".

Re: BYOT: Bring your own team for new-grads

#26

Post by mkmk3 »

shoo wrote: post #17
gregdoesit wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s true that if you can say “you can hire from {top N colleges like MIT}” then this would be attractive. Trouble is, this won’t scale beyond the top 10: the ones which get far more recruiter reachouts than students. The other thing that could be a sell is retention. Retaining new grads beyond a year or two is notoriously difficult. If you’d have data or proof that this approach significantly increases retention and…

> Retaining new grads beyond a year or two is notoriously difficult. surely it's not that difficult: the value to an employer of a, er, "lightly-used second hand" grad with +1-2 years of real world engineering experience is dramatically higher than that of a completely green new grad. if an employer takes the initiative to award market-rate anchored raises commensurate with the value a junior engineer with 1-2 years…

I think youre right for a lot of cases, but there are a few reasons Ive been subject to. You dont know what aspects of the work are persistent across orgs (grass is greener bias but maybe it actually is, its hard to tell), the work can be boring, you might be looking for a better cultural fit. My local team is very small and our tasks disparate, so local cooperation is lacking despite having to be in office. Processes may look smoother elsewhere, or you might just feel undervalued. You mention paying a competitive salary, that also seems hard to do via raises for some reason. Switching jobs can be such a waste but its your best chance to earn and learn more

Re: BYOT: Bring your own team for new-grads

#27

Post by mediumiqsad »

gregdoesit wrote: post #5
mapsdkhsd wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, that is one of the primary concerns on the employer side we've heard. It is easier to hire new grads for sure. Our solution to that is to offer highly desirable engineers. Our founding group is a set of high school friends, currently all juniors at Caltech, CMU, and MIT. In our first batch, we have numerous groups with high Putnam scores, high ranking competitive programmers, and 2+ FAANG internships. There w…

It’s true that if you can say “you can hire from {top N colleges like MIT}” then this would be attractive. Trouble is, this won’t scale beyond the top 10: the ones which get far more recruiter reachouts than students. The other thing that could be a sell is retention. Retaining new grads beyond a year or two is notoriously difficult. If you’d have data or proof that this approach significantly increases retention and…

Why would that be attractive to employers?

Why would it be a problem if opened up to more schools? I’d love to hear the subtext here made explicit.

Re: BYOT: Bring your own team for new-grads

#28

Post by mediumiqsad »

Why did you select these institutions in particular?

Carnegie Mellon University University of California, Berkeley Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cornell University Princeton University Stanford University California Institute of Technology Harvard University Yale University Dartmouth College Brown University Duke University

…and which ones will be added soon?

Re: BYOT: Bring your own team for new-grads

#29

Post by wink »

This sounds just like the cliche that every Hollywood movie tells us (the rest of the world) about college. That is to say, I nearly zoned out at the first sentence. I studied CS at a German non-campus university, in a time (it's not THAT long ago) when we didn't even have BSc+MSc, but something that usually took 8-15 semesters. I didn't even finish at the same time as most of the people I spent time with. We all had different subjects for the latter part (just as you split off after your BSc I assume). Also for the record, if you think your study group (including you) at college are the brightest people you ever met, you should get out more.
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